World trade body chief says vaccine inequity ""unacceptable""

Desk 2021-04-01 Geneva, Apr 1 (AP) The head of the World Trade Organisation called Thursday for expanded capability in developing countries to manufacture vaccines, saying the gaping imbalance in access to coronavirus vaccines that mostly favours rich, developed countries was unacceptable. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said she supports the creation of a framework that would give developing countries "some automaticity and access to manufacture vaccines with technology transfer" during future pandemics, decrying the "vaccine inequity" of the current one. "The idea that 70% of vaccines today have been administered only by 10 countries is really not acceptable," Okonjo-Iweala told reporters…