THE world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations must not be “trampled in the stampede” for Covid-19 vaccines, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned. 

WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that successful vaccines must be distributed equitability and called for $4.3 billion (£3.2bn) in funding for a sharing scheme. 

The Covax scheme aims to deliver two billion doses to more than 90 low-income countries by the end of 2021, but is currently struggling to raise the funds.

He said that it was not a question of whether the “world can afford to share” the four leading vaccines but “whether it can afford not to.”

Speaking at a virtual news conference on Monday, Dr Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while “every government rightly wants to do everything it can to protect its people,” he was concerned that wealthier countries would buy up available stocks of successful vaccines, leaving poorer nations empty-handed.

One of the vaccines developed in Russia, the Sputnik V, is said to cost significantly less than its competitor at $20 (£15) per person on international markets.

The vaccine will be free of charge for Russian citizens, the Sputnik V Twitter account revealed today.

Some countries are purchasing multiple doses of the different vaccines as it is not yet known which will be the most effective and safest. 

India, the European Union, the United States, Canada and Britain are the countries which have reserved the most doses. 

Britain and Canada are also signatories to the Covax scheme but researchers have warned that they are directly negotiating their own deals with pharmaceutical companies, meaning that are taking doses off the market.