UN Secretary-General António Guterres sharply criticized the “wildly unequal and unfair” distribution of Covid vaccines, saying that ten countries had administered 75% of all vaccinations and demanded a global effort to protect all people in each country. get vaccinated as soon as possible. .
The UN chief said at a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday that 130 countries had not yet received a single dose of vaccine.
“At this critical moment, the vaccine is tantamount to the greatest moral test before the world community,” he said.
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.
He called on 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 should have the ability to mobilize the pharmaceutical companies and key industry and logistics role players.
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 vaccinations, including in conflict areas.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the coronavirus has 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, a project to buy and deliver coronavirus vaccines for the poorest people in the world, has already missed its own goal of starting coronavirus vaccinations in poor countries, while shots have been fired in rich countries is. The WHO says that Covax will need $ 5 billion in 2021.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the council the Biden administration “will work with our partners around the world to expand production and distribution capacity and increase access, including to marginalized populations”.
President Joe Biden rejoined the WTO and Blinken announced that by the end of February, the US would pay more than $ 200 million to previously assessed and current commitments to the UN agency, which will reform Washington.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized the growing “immunity divisions” and called on the world to “come together to” reject vaccine nationalism “, promote a fair and equitable distribution of vaccines especially accessible and affordable for developing countries, including those in conflict ”.
At the request of the WHO, he said, China would contribute a dose of ten million vaccines “provisionally” to Covax.
China has donated vaccines to 53 developing countries, including Somalia, Iraq, South Sudan and Palestine, which is a UN observer state. He also exported vaccines to 22 countries, he said, adding that Beijing had launched research and development cooperation on Covid with more than ten countries.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also called for a strike of ‘vaccination against nationalism’ and encouragement for internationalism. “Storing excess doses will defeat our efforts to achieve collective health safety,” he warned.
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.
Mexico’s Secretary of State Marcelo Ebrard, whose country is president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries, called for COVAX to be speeded up and the “unnecessary storage” and “monopolisation of vaccines” stopped.
He urges that countries with limited resources take precedence and says that it is pointed out that these countries will only have universal access in 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. ”
Britain’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab, whose country holds the presidency of 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 ceasefire in conflict zones. allowed to deliver Covid-19 vaccines.
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.
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.