(Reuters) – Rich countries would not listen to coronavirus vaccines and should only give pandemic-related bailouts to companies that are committed to protecting the environment, and helping those in need and ‘common good’, Pope Francis said on Wednesday .
“It would be sad if the rich get priority over the Covid-19 vaccine. It would be sad if the vaccine became the property of this or that people, if it was not universal and for everyone, ”Francis told his weekly general audience.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that any nation that preserves COVID-19 vaccines while excluding others would deepen the pandemic.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has warned against “vaccinating nationalism”, urges countries to join a global pact by a deadline of 31 August to share vaccines hopefully with developing countries.
More than 150 vaccines are in development, about two dozen are in human studies and a handful are in late-stage tests.
Francis also said it would be a ‘scandal’ if governments ran out of pandemic-related bail-out money to select only sectors.
He said the criteria for companies to receive public assistance would be if they “contribute to the inclusion of people who are normally excluded (from society), to help the most needy, to the general good and to to take care of the environment “.
More than 21.9 million people have been reported to be infected worldwide by the novel coronavirus and 772,647 have died, according to a Reuters census.
“The pandemic is a crisis and one never consists of a crisis that comes back as it was before,” Francis said.
‘Either we leave better, or we leave less. We need to move forward to address social injustices and environmental degradation. ”
The pope’s audience is still being held freely from its official library in the Vatican because of the pandemic instead of St. Peter’s Square, previously filled with tens of thousands of people.
Report by Philip Pullella; edited by Philippa Fletcher
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