GENEVA: More than half of poorer countries receiving doses via the COVAX vaccine-sharing programme do not have enough supplies to continue, an official from the World Health Orgnization which co-runs it said on Monday.

"I would say of the 80 AMC countries at least well over a half of them would not have sufficient vaccine to be able to sustain their programmes right now," WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward told a briefing, referring to an advance market commitment to low and middle-income countries, saying the actual portion was probably "much higher".

Some of them had completely ran out, he added. The shortages, caused partly by manufacturing delays and Indian supply disruptions, come as cases and deaths increase across Africa as part of a third wave of infections.