* New Covid-19 variants are likely to keep on emerging until the whole world is vaccinated against the virus, experts warn.
* In low-income countries, only 8.5% of people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to data.
* The sharing of vaccinations is not just an altruistic act but a pragmatic one, experts note.
LONDON — New Covid-19 variants are likely to keep on emerging until the globe has been vaccinated against the virus, experts warn, saying that the sharing of vaccines is not just an altruistic act but a pragmatic one.
“Until the whole world is vaccinated, not just rich Western countries, I think we are going to remain in danger of new variants coming along and some of those could be more virulent than omicron,” Dr. Andrew Freedman, an academic in infectious diseases at Cardiff University Medical School, told CNBC on Thursday.
Viruses “tend to become milder” as they evolve, Freedman noted, but he cautioned that this “isn’t always the case.”
“It may well be with future variants that they are even more contagious, they may be milder, but we can’t say that with certainty.”
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