UNITED NATIONS (AP) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday sharply criticized the “wildly unequal and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, saying that ten countries administered 75 percent of all vaccinations and a worldwide attempt to get all people in. vaccinated each nation as soon as possible.
The UN chief said at a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council that 130 countries had not yet received a single dose of vaccine, declaring that “at this critical moment the vaccine is tantamount to the greatest moral test before the world community.”
Guterres insisted on an urgent global vaccination plan to bring together those who have the power to ensure equitable vaccine distribution – scientists, vaccine producers and those who can fund the effort.
And he appealed to the world’s largest economic powers in the Group of 20 to set up an emergency task force to draw up a plan and coordinate its implementation and financing. He said the task force would have the ability to “mobilize pharmaceutical companies and key players in industry and logistics.”
Guterres said on Friday that the meeting of the group of seven major industrialized countries – the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Canada and Italy – “could create the momentum to mobilize the necessary financial resources.”
Thirteen ministers have organized Britain’s virtual council meeting on improving access to COVID-19 vaccinations, including in conflict areas.
The coronavirus infected more than 109 million people and killed at least 2.4 million people. As manufacturers struggle to boost vaccine production, many countries are complaining that they are being ignored, and even rich countries are facing shortages and domestic complaints.
The World Health Organization’s COVAX program, an ambitious project to buy and deliver coronavirus vaccines for the poorest people in the world, already has its own goal of starting to miss coronavirus vaccinations in poor countries, at the same time that shots rolled out in rich countries. WHO says COVAX needs $ 5 billion by 2021.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the council that the Biden government “will work with our partners around the world to expand and increase production and distribution capacity, including to marginalized populations.”
President Joe Biden rejoined the WHO and Blinken announced that by the end of February, the United States would pay more than $ 200 million to its current commitments to the UN agency, which will reform Washington.
America’s top diplomat said the US also intends to provide “significant financial support” to COVAX through the GAVI vaccine alliance, and will work to other multilateral initiatives involved in the global COVID-19 response strengthen. He gave no details.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized the growing “difference in immunity” and called on the world to “come together to reject” vaccine nationalism “, promote a fair and equitable distribution of vaccines, and in particular make accessible and affordable for developing countries, including those in conflict. ”
At WHO’s request, he said, China would contribute 10 million doses of vaccines “for the time being” to COVAX.
China has donated vaccines to 53 developing countries, including Somalia, Iraq, South Sudan and Palestine, which is a UN observer state. He has also exported vaccines to 22 countries, adding that Beijing has launched research and development cooperation on COVID-19 with more than ten countries.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also called for a vaccination of nationalism and an encouragement of internationalism. “Storing excess doses will defeat our efforts to achieve collective health safety,” he warned.
Jaishankar said India was at the forefront of the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, which initially provided medicine, ventilators and personal protective equipment, and now sent direct in-India vaccines to 25 countries around the world, with 49 additional countries from Europe and Latin America to Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands would receive vaccines “in the coming days”.
The minister said two vaccines, including one developed in India, had been granted emergency authorization, and as many as thirty vaccination candidates were in various stages of development.
Jaishankar has announced a donation of 200,000 doses of vaccine to some 90,000 UN peacekeepers serving in a dozen hotspots around the world.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, whose country is currently president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, has called for COVAX to be speeded up and the “improper storage” and “monopolisation of vaccines” stopped.
He insisted that countries with limited resources take precedence, saying “it is pointed out that these countries will not have universal access until mid-2023 if current trends continue.”
“What we see is a big gap,” Ebrard said. ‘I actually think we’ve never seen such a big split touching so much in such a short time. Therefore, it is important to reverse it. ”
He called on the international community not to put in place mechanisms to prevent the rapid delivery of vaccines, but to strengthen supply chains “that will promote and guarantee universal access.”
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, whose country chairs the Security Council this month and chaired the virtual assembly, has called on the United Nations’ most powerful body to pass a resolution calling for a local strike in conflict zones allowed to deliver COVID-19 vaccines. .
“Stake fires have been used to vaccinate the most vulnerable communities in the past,” he said. “There’s no reason why we can not … We’ve already seen polio vaccines delivered to children in Afghanistan, just to take one example.”
Britain says more than 160 million people are at risk of being excluded from coronavirus vaccinations because they live in countries engulfed by conflict and instability, including Yemen, Syria, southern Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Britain’s UN Ambassador, Barbara Woodward, said: “Humanitarian organizations and UN agencies need the full support of the Council to carry out the work we are asking them to do.”
Britain has drafted a Security Council resolution hoping the UK will adopt it in the coming weeks, she said.
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has objected to the council’s focus on equitable access to vaccines, saying it goes beyond its mandate to preserve international peace and security.
To indicate that Moscow is not interested in a new resolution. he said Russia was ready to discuss progress with the implementation of the Security Council’s only resolution on the pandemic. After three months of difficult negotiations, on 1 July the Council endorsed the Secretary – General’s call for a ceasefire in major global conflicts to tackle COVID-19.
The British Raab argued that the council should follow up the strike and call for a ceasefire, specifically to carry out COVID vaccines in the areas so badly affected by conflict. ‘