Recognising that developing countries are still struggling to survive amid the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when it comes to vaccination against the deadly virus, UN Secretary General António Guterres has called for the implementation of a Global Vaccine Plan.
He made this plea on Friday in his remarks to the third G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Venice, Italy.
“You have come together to determine the course of some of the most pressing issues we face: access to vaccines; extending an economic lifeline to the developing world; and more and better public finance for ambitious climate action.”
According to Guterres, many developed countries appear to be overcoming the pandemic, but developing countries are still struggling to survive, let alone recover. He said that while 70 per cent of people in some developed countries are vaccinated, this figure stands at less than one per cent in low-income countries.
“A global vaccine gap threatens us all because as the virus mutates, it could become even more transmissible, or even more deadly,” he noted.
He reminded that the world is now in the second year of a global pandemic that has killed over four million people “and I do not need to tell you: it is far from over,” he added.
The UN Secretary General pointed out that the pandemic has gathered pace. “It took nine months for the virus to claim one million lives; and about three months for it to take the second and third million. The fourth million died in just two and a half months,” Guterres said.
UN Secretary General António Guterres
While the pledges of doses and funds are welcomed, Guterres stressed that they are not enough as “we need not one billion, but at least eleven billion doses to vaccinate 70 percent of the world and end this pandemic.” In this regard, he emphasised that this calls for the greatest global public health campaign in history, to vaccinate everyone, everywhere.
“The world needs a Global Vaccine Plan, to at least double production of vaccines and ensure equitable distribution, using COVAX as the platform; to coordinate implementation and financing; and to support countries’ readiness and capacity to roll out immunisation programmes, while tackling vaccine hesitancy,” he added.
“To realise this plan, I am calling for an Emergency Task Force that brings together the countries that produce and can produce vaccines, the World Health Organisation, the global vaccine alliance GAVI, and international financial institutions, able to deal with the relevant pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers, and other key stakeholders.”
According to him, the G20 Meeting is the best placed to lead the world in preparing and implementing such a plan. He assured Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from around the world that their country has the production and financial capacities to defeat COVID-19.
Just recently, the Director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr Carissa Etienne said that there is a huge access gap to COVID-19 vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean.
She noted that the emergence of new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the Americas increases the need for access to vaccines in the Region.
“…Very few places are benefiting from the full potential of vaccines as there is a huge access gap in our Region…This is unacceptable, and the emergence of variants makes it even more urgent that we accelerate supply to the places with the highest transmission,” she had expressed.
