UNITED NATIONS (PA) – Britain sent a draft resolution to the UN Security Council on Friday, calling on all warring parties to immediately establish a “sustained humanitarian break” to allow people in conflict zones to be vaccinated for COVID-19.
The motion for a resolution reiterates the Council’s call on 1 July for a “general and immediate cessation of hostilities” in the major conflicts in Syria and Yemen in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan and Somalia. The call was first made by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on March 23, 2020, to address the coronavirus pandemic.
The project “emphasizes the need for solidarity, equity and effectiveness and calls for the donation of vaccine doses from developed economies to low- and middle-income and other countries in need, including through the COVAX Facility”, an ambitious World Health Organization project for buyers and deliver coronavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest people.
The British project emphasizes that “equitable access to affordable, safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines is essential to ending the pandemic”.
It would recognize “the role of extended immunization against COVID-19 as a global public good for health in preventing, containing and stopping transmission, to end the pandemic.”
The project, obtained by The Associated Press, follows Wednesday’s call by British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to the 15-member Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire in conflict zones to allow the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines .
The UK says more than 160 million people are at risk of being excluded from coronavirus vaccination because they live in countries of conflict and instability.
“The ceasefire has been used in the past to vaccinate the most vulnerable communities,” Raab said. “There’s no reason we can’t … We’ve seen the delivery of polio vaccines to children in Afghanistan in the past, just to give an example.”
At Wednesday’s council meeting, Guterres sharply criticized the “wild, uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, saying 10 countries had given 75% of all vaccinations and called for a global effort to vaccinate all people in each nation. as soon as possible.
The head of the UN said at the high-level council meeting 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 facing the global community.”
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.
Guterres’ call for a ceasefire in March last year to deliver medical supplies to COVID-19 received initial support, but the ceasefire was almost always short-lived.
While the speed of vaccine development has been impressive, COVAX has already lost its own goal of starting coronavirus vaccinations in poor countries, at the same time as fires were launched in rich countries at the end of last year.
WHO says COVAX needs $ 5 billion in 2021.
The draft resolution calls for countries’ COVID-19 vaccination plans to include “those most at risk of developing severe symptoms of COVID-19 and the most vulnerable, including front-line workers, the elderly, refugees, displaced persons stateless persons, migrants, persons with disabilities, among others, as well as persons living in areas under the control of any non-state armed group. ”
The proposed measure requires increased scientific collaboration for the new variants of COVID-19.
It requires Guterres to report at least once every 90 days on all impediments to the COVID-19 response, including vaccination programs, in countries where conflicts and humanitarian emergencies occur.
It is unclear whether the resolution will be adopted.
The British ambassador to the United Kingdom, Barbara Woodward, said on Wednesday that humanitarian organizations and UN agencies need the full support of the council in order to carry out its task.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, opposed the Council’s focus on equitable access to vaccines, saying it was beyond its mandate to maintain international peace and security. He indicated that Moscow is not interested in a new resolution.