Those most at risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19, including health workers and older people, must come first – and they must come first everywhere World Health Organization Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday.

He added that globally, the number of vaccinations has now overtaken the number of reported infections. "In one sense, that's good news, and a remarkable achievement in such a short timeframe.

But more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for almost 60 percent of global GDP he added.

Almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose. Some countries have already vaccinated large proportions of their population who are at lower risk of severe disease or death.

The WHO boss said all governments have an obligation to protect their own people.

"But once countries with vaccines have vaccinated their own health workers and older people, the best way to protect the rest of their own population is to share vaccines so other countries can do the same," he remarked. That's because the longer it takes to vaccinate those most at risk everywhere, the more opportunity we give the virus to mutate and evade vaccines."

He further noted that: "Unless we suppress the virus everywhere, we could end up back at square one."

(With input from World Health Organization)