South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the crowd gathered at Miki Yili Stadium, ahead of the 25th anniversary celebrations of Freedom Day, in Makhanda, Eastern Cape Province, on April 27, 2019.
MICHELE SPATARI | AFP | Getty Images
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday urged the world’s richest countries to stop “accumulating” vaccines and called for an end to “vaccine nationalism”.
In comments made at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda virtual event, Ramaphosa warned that some countries had ordered more vaccine supplies than needed and that this was counterproductive to the global recovery effort.
“Ending the pandemic worldwide will require greater collaboration in launching vaccines, ensuring that no country is left behind in this effort,” he said.
“The rich countries of the world have gone out and purchased large doses of vaccines from the developers and manufacturers of these vaccines, and some countries have gone further and purchased up to four times what their populations need,” he said.
“This was aimed at accumulating these vaccines and is now being done to the exclusion of other countries in the world that need it most,” he added, urging major economies to release their excess stocks for distribution to developing countries.
South Africa is the country hardest hit by Covid-19 on the continent, which has largely managed to avoid the kind of uncontrolled spread that has paralyzed the United States and much of Europe. As of Tuesday morning, the country recorded more than 1.4 million cases with 41,117 deaths.
In a panel discussion as part of the Davos Agenda event on Tuesday morning, Africa’s CDC Director, John Nkengasong, said the continent is facing a “very aggressive second wave” of the pandemic, with mortality rising. on average 18% over the past 55 African member states week.
“We, as a continent, must recognize that vaccines will not be here when we want them, but, as such, we really need to focus on the public health measures that we know work,” he added.
Ramaphosa, who is also president of the African Union, praised the continent’s collaborations in Covid-19 responses, including the Africa Medical Supply Platform, which offered assistance to national health systems, established regional collaboration centers and mobilized health professionals to support testing and treatment efforts.
He also praised the progress of the African Vaccine Procurement Task Team, which he said was created when AU nations realized “how the richest countries in the world are behaving”.
AVATT guaranteed 270 million provisional doses to AU member states directly, in addition to the 600 million expected from the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative.