The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday warned that the world is currently in the early stages of another wave of coronavirus infections, and that the inequitable distribution of vaccines threatens to restart the pandemic all over again.

"The global failure to share vaccines, tests, and treatments--including oxygen--is fuelling a two-track pandemic: the haves are opening up, while the have-nots are locking down," said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a speech at the 138th International Olympic Committee Session. "The longer this discrepancy persists, the longer the pandemic will drag on, and so will the social and economic turmoil it brings."

Tedros stated that more than 3.5 billion vaccines doses have been administered globally, with more than one-in-four people in the world receiving at least one dose. While that sounds like an encouraging milestone towards the end of the pandemic, the vaccines have been distributed in a very inequitable way, with 75% of vaccines being administered to just 10 countries.

"In low income countries, only 1% of people have recieved at least one dose, compared with the more than half of people in high-income countries," Tedros said. " Some of the richest countries are now talking about third booster shots for their populations, while health-workers, older people and other vulnerable groups in the rest of the world continue to go without."

While not only demonstrating a "horrifying injustice" in vaccine distribution, it is also leaving the world more vulnerable to the development of new and possibly worse COVID variant strains as the virus continues to mutate with ongoing transmission, Tedros said. The more variants, the more likely a new strain will emerge that evades this current generation of vaccines, which will move the pandemic back to where it started over a year and a half ago.

"The tragedy of this pandemic is that it could have been under control by now, if the vaccine had been allocated more equitably," Tedros said. "The pandemic is a test. And the world is failing."

Tedros said that the heads of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, alongside the WHO, have called for a massive global push to vaccinate at least 10% of the population of every country by September, at least 40% by the end of the year, and 70% by mid-next year. If the world can reach those goals, Tedros continued, the pandemic will not only end, but the global economy will also recover.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us all many painful but important lessons. One of the most important is that when health is at risk, everything is at risk," Tedros said. "That's why WHO's top priority is universal health coverage. Our vision is a world in which all people can access the health services they need, where they need them, without facing financial hardship."

"The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it," Tedros added. "It's in our hands. We have all the tools we need: we can prevent this disease, we can test for it, and we can treat it."