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UN Secretary General António Guterres has harshly criticized the “tremendously unequal and unfair” distribution of Covid vaccines, saying 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccines and demanding a global effort to vaccinate all people. from all countries asap. .
The UN chief told a high-level meeting of the UN security council on Wednesday that 130 countries had yet to receive a single dose of vaccine.
“At this critical time, vaccine equity is the greatest moral test before the world community,” he said.
Guterres called for an urgent global vaccination plan to bring together those with the power to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines: scientists, vaccine producers and those who can fund the effort.
He called on the world’s major economic powers in the Group of 20 to establish an emergency working group to establish a plan and coordinate its implementation and financing. He said the task force must have the capacity “to mobilize pharmaceutical companies and key players in industry and logistics.”
Guterres said Friday’s meeting of the Group of seven major industrialized countries – the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Canada and Italy – “can create momentum to mobilize the necessary financial resources.”
Thirteen ministers addressed the virtual council meeting hosted by Britain to improve access to Covid vaccines, including in conflict areas.
The coronavirus has infected more than 109 million people and killed at least 2.4 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. As manufacturers struggle to increase vaccine production, many countries complain of being left out and even rich nations face shortages and internal complaints.
The World Health Organization’s Covax program, a project to purchase and distribute coronavirus vaccines for the world’s poorest people, no longer achieved its goal of starting coronavirus vaccines in poor countries at the same time as vaccines were implemented in rich countries. The WHO says Covax needs $ 5 billion in 2021.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the council that Biden’s management “will work with our partners around the world to expand manufacturing and distribution capacity and to increase access, including to underserved populations.”
President Joe Biden has rejoined the WHO and Blinken announced that by the end of February the United States would pay more than $ 200 million in current and previously assessed obligations to the UN agency, which Washington will seek to reform.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized the growing “immunity gap” and called on the world “to unite in rejecting ‘vaccine nationalism’, promoting the fair and equitable distribution of vaccines, and in particular making them accessible and affordable for development countries, including those in conflict ”.
At the request of the WHO, he said, China will contribute 10 million doses of vaccines to Covax “on a preliminary basis.”
China has donated vaccines to 53 developing countries, including Somalia, Iraq, South Sudan and Palestine, which is a UN observer state. It has also exported vaccines to 22 countries, he said, adding that Beijing has launched research and development cooperation on Covid with more than 10 countries.
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also called for an end to “vaccine nationalism” and the encouragement of internationalism. “Hoarding superfluous doses will frustrate our efforts to achieve collective health security,” he warned.
Two vaccines, including one developed in India, have received emergency clearance, the minister said, and as many as 30 candidate vaccines are in various stages of development.
Jaishankar announced “a gift of 200,000 doses” of vaccine for approximately 90,000 UN peacekeepers serving a dozen hotspots around the world.
The Foreign Minister of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard, whose country is president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, called for the acceleration of COVAX and for stopping the “undue hoarding” and “monopolization of vaccines”.
He urged that countries with limited resources be given priority, saying that “it has been pointed out that these countries will not have widespread access until mid-2023 if current trends persist.”
“What we are seeing is a huge gap,” Ebrard said. “In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a huge divide that affects so many people in such a short time. That’s why it’s important to reverse this. “
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, whose country holds the presidency of the security council this month and chaired the virtual meeting, urged the most powerful UN body to adopt a resolution calling for a local ceasefire in the conflict zones to allow delivery of Covid-19 vaccines.
Britain says more than 160 million people are at risk of being excluded from coronavirus vaccines because they live in countries mired in conflict and instability, including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, opposed the council’s focus on equitable access to vaccines, saying this went beyond his mandate to preserve international peace and security.
