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The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned against "vaccine nationalism" on Thursday, saying that national efforts to corner supplies of a future coronavirus vaccine would only prolong the pandemic.

If people in poorer countries were unable to get vaccinated, "the virus will continue to spread and the economic recovery globally will be delayed," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"Some countries are buying more vaccines in advance, in quantities more than double their population size, putting at risk the access and affordability of vaccines for other countries," Tedros told the annual Paris Peace Forum.

"This is a moment for saying no to nationalism and vaccine nationalism and yes to our shared humanity," he urged.

Tedros said that the WHO's ACT-A initiative to ensure worldwide access to Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines has a funding gap of 28.5 billion dollars, of which 4.5 billion is "needed urgently to maintain momentum."

Organizers of the forum earlier said they were expecting pledges of 500 million dollars towards making Covid-19 vaccines - many of which are at various stages of development - globally accessible, but they were not able to confirm whether that figure had been reached after Thursday's session.

French President Emmanuel Macron promised 100 million euros (118 million dollars) for the project once a vaccine was available.

He also offered to make some of the first doses ordered by France available to developing countries immediately so that they could vaccinate their health workers.

"As long as one part of humanity, however small, is not out of the woods, all the planet is threatened," Macron said.

Seth Berkley, chief executive of the Gavi vaccine alliance which is running an international procurement platform for vaccine doses, said his organization aimed to make 2.2 billion doses available by late 2021.

That should be "enough to protect high risk individuals in countries around the world," he said.

The coronavirus has infected more than 51 million people worldwide and has cost almost 1.3 million lives since it was first detected in China's Wuhan province late last year.