UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly criticized the “extremely uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday, saying that 10 countries administered 75% of all vaccines and demanding a global effort to vaccinate all vaccines. people in all nations as soon as possible.
The UN chief said at a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council that 130 countries have not received a single dose of the vaccine and declared that “at this critical time, equality of the vaccine is the biggest moral test before the global community”.
Guterres called for an urgent Global Vaccination Plan to bring together those empowered to ensure fair distribution of the vaccine – scientists, vaccine producers and those who can finance the effort.
The Secretary-General urged the world’s leading economic powers in the Group of 20 to establish an emergency task force to establish a plan and coordinate its implementation and financing. He said the task force must have the ability to “mobilize pharmaceutical companies and key players in industry and logistics”.
Guterres said Friday’s meeting of the Group of Seven largest industrialized nations “could create the momentum to mobilize the necessary financial resources”.
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British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab, whose country holds the presidency of the Security Council this month, asked the most powerful UN body to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire in conflict zones to allow the delivery of vaccines COVID-19 .
Thirteen ministers were scheduled to address the meeting on improving access to COVID-19, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Britain says that more than 160 million people are at risk of being excluded from coronavirus vaccinations because they live in countries involved in conflict and instability, including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.
“Global vaccination coverage is essential to beat the coronavirus,” said Raab before the meeting. “That’s why the UK is calling for a vaccination ceasefire to allow COVID-19 vaccines to reach people living in conflict zones and for a greater global effort by the team to provide equitable access.”
Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, said: “UN humanitarian organizations and agencies need the full support of the council to carry out the work we ask of them.”
Woodward said ceasefire has been used to carry out vaccinations, pointing to a two-day break in fighting in Afghanistan in 2001, which allowed 35,000 health professionals and volunteers to vaccinate 5.7 million children under 5 against polio .
Britain drew up a Security Council resolution that Woodward said the United Kingdom expects to be adopted in the coming weeks.
Mexican Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday that Mexico will emphasize the importance of equal access for all countries to COVID-19 vaccines at the council meeting.
He was extremely critical that countries that produce the vaccine have high vaccination rates, while Latin American countries have problems getting any vaccine.
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The coronavirus infected more than 109 million people and killed at least 2.4 million people. But many countries have not yet started vaccination programs, and even wealthy nations are facing a shortage of vaccine doses as manufacturers struggle to increase production.
The World Health Organization’s COVAX program, an ambitious project to buy and deliver coronavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest people, has already lost its own goal of starting coronavirus vaccination in poor countries at the same time as vaccines were launched in rich countries.
Numerous developing countries have rushed in recent weeks to sign their own private agreements to buy vaccines, not wanting to wait for COVAX.
Woodward said Britain supported the reservation of 5% of doses of COVAX as a “last resort” buffer to ensure that high-risk populations have access to COVID-19 vaccines.