Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told reporters on Tuesday that the Mexican delegation to the United Nations will file a complaint with the UN Security Council tomorrow about “inequality” and “inequity” that he says prevent access. the vaccines.
“Countries that produce [vaccines] have higher vaccination rates and Latin America and the Caribbean have much less, “said Ebrard.” We will increase in the Security Council because it is not fair “, he concluded.
With the scarcity of supplies, the Mexican government’s concern about whether some countries are accumulating vaccines is shared by many around the world.
Wealthier countries like the United States, Israel, China and the United Kingdom are at the top or near the top of the list in number of vaccines administered so far, while many poorer countries have yet to offer a single dose.
“Even when vaccines bring hope to some, they become yet another brick in the wall of inequality between those who have and those who don’t,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in January.
“Even speaking the language of equitable access, some countries and companies continue to prioritize bilateral agreements … raising prices and trying to jump to the front of the queue. This is wrong,” he said.
WHO officials fear that this type of behavior could jeopardize their egalitarian distribution facility, called Covax. Covax plans to distribute around 2 billion doses of the vaccine worldwide by the end of this year, many of which would go to poorer countries.
Mexico’s complaint at the UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday will focus on Latin America and the Caribbean, a poor part of the world particularly devastated by the pandemic.
Distribution of Covax has not yet started, although it announced plans earlier this month to distribute more than 35 million doses of the vaccine across the region by the end of the second quarter, with the potential for more if supplies become available.
But that is a drop in the ocean for the 500 million people in the region that the Pan American Health Organization says need to be immunized to control the pandemic.