GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) warned against the danger of buying overpriced Covid-19 vaccines from intermediaries, reminding countries to buy vaccines certified by the WHO and make sure to identify the origin of the product.

"We have received concerns regarding other vaccines with intermediates selling it (one vaccine) at a much higher price than what has been actually sold by the manufacturers,” read a statement by Mariangela Batista Galvao Simao, WHO Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products. Simao said that countries should either buy directly from the manufacturer or "contact the manufacturer to make sure that the intermediate is legal".

The issue of the role of intermediates for buying vaccines was raised recently as a middleman, located in the United Arab Emirates, was caught selling Sputnik vaccines to Ghana and Pakistan at double the original price, reports by Xinhua.

"There is a lot of substandard and falsified Covid products being commercialised out there, so you need to know the provenance," Simao said. She also said that it was important to vaccinate people with products "certified" by the WHO. "The advice of the WHO is that the countries use vaccines that have received emergency listing," she said, referring to the Emergency Use Listing used by the global health body to approve new vaccines.

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