It is unfair, said Guterres, that so few countries should control most of the world’s vaccine stockpile. To address this inequality, the secretary-general proposed that G20 members create an emergency task force to promote global access to vaccines.
“At this critical time, vaccine equality is the biggest moral test before the global community,” he said in a virtual meeting on Wednesday with the UN Security Council.
About 188 million doses of vaccine have been administered worldwide, according to the digital database Our World in Data. Tens of millions of these doses went to the United States, China, the United Kingdom and Israel.
Guterres did not cite the 10 countries that administered three-quarters of all Covid-19 vaccines. But the United States is certainly among them – more than 72.4 million vaccines have been distributed there, and more than 56 million have been administered, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The proposed task force would include members of the Group of 20. Which is made up of countries with the largest economies in the world, which would provide the money and scientific expertise to make vaccines more accessible to countries in the “Global South”, which includes countries in Africa, Latin America and South America.
The task force would perform functions similar to those of COVAX, an initiative of the Vaccine Alliance known as Gavi and the World Health Organization (WHO). This initiative was created to buy vaccines in bulk and send them to the poorest nations that cannot compete with the rich countries in obtaining contracts with the main pharmaceutical companies.
COVAX is working to distribute 2 billion doses of vaccines to countries in the Global South.
Guterres’ suggestion came in the same week that Mexico indicated that it would file a complaint with the UN Security Council about the “unfair” launch of the vaccine, which Foreign Minister Marcel Ebrard said favored the richest countries.
Mexico, which has signed purchase agreements for the final delivery of more than 230 million doses of various Covid-19 vaccines, has delivered 750,000 doses so far.
In January, Guterres urged countries to commit to sharing the overdose of the vaccine, specifically calling on the richest countries in the world that received millions of doses.
“The world’s major economies have a special responsibility. However, today we are seeing a vaccine vacuum. Vaccines are reaching high-income countries quickly, while the world’s poorest have none,” Guterres said in a video message. last month.
CNN’s Tim Lister, Nectar Gan, Deidre McPhillips and Jonny Hallam contributed to this report.
.Source
Related
