UN (PA) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has sharply criticized the “wild, uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday, saying 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccinations and called for a global effort to to attract all people to each vaccinated nation as soon as possible.
The head of the UN said at a UN Security Council summit that 130 countries had not received a single dose of vaccine and said that “at this critical time, vaccine equity is the biggest moral test in front of the community. global ”.
Guterres called for an urgent global vaccination plan to bring together those with the power to ensure a fair distribution of vaccines – scientists, vaccine manufacturers and those who can fund the effort.
And he called on the major economic powers in the group of 20 to set up an emergency task force to establish a plan and coordinate its implementation and funding. He said the working group should have the capacity to “mobilize pharmaceutical companies and key players in industry and logistics”.
Guterres said Friday’s meeting of the Group of Seven Large Industrialized Nations – the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Canada and Italy – “could create the impetus to mobilize the necessary financial resources.”
Thirteen ministers addressed the UK’s virtual council meeting on improving access to COVID-19 vaccinations, including in conflict zones.
Coronavirus has infected more than 109 million people and killed at least 2.4 million of them. As producers struggle to increase vaccine production, many countries complain that they are left out and even rich nations face internal shortages and complaints.
The World Health Organization’s COVAX program, an ambitious project to buy and deliver coronavirus vaccines for the world’s poorest people, has already missed its own goal of starting coronavirus vaccinations in poor countries at the same time as fires were launched in rich countries. WHO says COVAX needs $ 5 billion in 2021.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the council that 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 has joined the WHO, and Blinken has announced that by the end of February, the United States will pay more than $ 200 million in current assessed and current liabilities to the UN agency, which Washington will seek to reform.
The leading US diplomat said the US also intends to provide “significant financial support” to COVAX through its alliance with the GAVI vaccine and will work to strengthen other multilateral initiatives involved in the overall COVID-19 response. He did not give details.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized the growing “division of immunity” and called on the world to come together to reject “vaccine nationalism”, to promote the fair and equitable distribution of vaccines, and in particular , to make them accessible and accessible to developing countries, including those in conflict ”.
At the request of the WHO, he said, China will contribute 10 million doses of “preliminary” COVAX vaccines.
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 has launched research and development cooperation on COVID-19 with more than 10 countries.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also called for an end to “vaccine nationalism” and encouragement of internationalism. “Taking unnecessary doses will defeat our efforts to achieve collective health security,” he warned.
Jaishankar said India has been at the forefront of the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, initially providing medicines, fans and personal protective equipment and now sending vaccines made in India directly to 25 nations around the world, with an additional 49 countries in Europe. and Latin America to Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands are to receive vaccines “in the coming days.”
Two vaccines, including one developed in India, have received an emergency permit, the minister said, and up to 30 vaccine candidates are in various stages of development.
Jaishankar announced a “gift of 200,000 doses” of the vaccine to about 90,000 UN peacekeepers serving a dozen hotspots around the world.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, whose country is currently president of the Commonwealth of Latin American and Caribbean States, called for COVAX to be accelerated and for “unjustified accumulation” and “vaccine monopolization” to be stopped.
He urged that priority be given to countries with limited resources, saying that “it was stressed that these countries will not have widespread access until mid-2023 if current trends persist.”
“What we see is a huge gap,” Ebrard said. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large division affect so many in such a short space of time. That is why it is important to reverse this. ”
He urged the international community not to put in place mechanisms to prevent the rapid delivery of vaccines, but to strengthen supply chains “that promote and guarantee universal access”.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, whose country holds the presidency of the Security Council this month and chaired the virtual meeting, called on the strongest UN body to adopt a resolution calling for a local ceasefire in conflict zones to allow delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.
“The ceasefire has been used in the past to vaccinate the most vulnerable communities,” he said. “There’s no reason we can’t … We’ve seen it deliver polio vaccines to children in Afghanistan in the past, just to give an example.”
The UK says more than 160 million people are at risk of being excluded from coronavirus vaccination because they live in countries plagued by conflict and instability, including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.
The British ambassador to the United Kingdom, Barbara Woodward, said: “Humanitarian organizations and UN agencies need the full support of the council in order to be able to carry out the task we are asking them to do.”
Britain has drafted a Security Council resolution that hopes the UK will be adopted in the coming weeks, she said.
Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia has opposed the Council’s focus on equitable access to vaccines, saying it goes beyond its mandate to maintain international peace and security.
Indicating that Moscow was not interested in a new resolution. he said Russia was ready to discuss progress in implementing the only resolution adopted by the Security Council on the pandemic. After three months of difficult negotiations, the July 1 council approved the Secretary-General’s call for a ceasefire in major global conflicts to address COVID-19.
The British Raab argued that the council should monitor and call for a ceasefire “especially to allow COVID vaccines to be given in those areas so severely affected by the conflict.”