People in India, S. America gasping for breath: UN chief

Recent surges of Covid-19 in India, South America and other regions have left people literally gasping for breath before our eyes, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said, warning that the pandemic is still very much with us, thriving and mutating”. “From the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I warned that no one is safe until everyone is safe. Grossly unequal access to vaccines, tests, medicines and supplies, including oxygen, have left poorer countries at the mercy of the virus, Guterres said in his statement to the Global Health Summit.

He said recent surges of Covid-19 in India, South America and other regions have left people literally gasping for breath before our eyes. The pandemic is still very much with us, thriving and mutating.

Let’s be clear, we are at war with the virus. And if you are at war with the virus, we need to deal with our weapons with rules of a war economy, and we are not yet there. And this is true for vaccines, and it is true for other components in the fight against the virus, he said.

While the COVAX should have delivered 170 million doses around the world by now, vaccine nationalism, limited production capacity and lack of funding have led to that figure being just 65 million.

I call on G20 countries to lead by example and contribute their full share of funding. An investment of billions could end up saving trillions and saving lives, he said.

Guterres stressed that vaccinating quickly and thoroughly around the world, together with continued public health measures, are the only way to end the pandemic and prevent more dangerous variants from gaining a foothold. He, however, noted with concern that so far, more than 82 per cent of the world’s vaccine doses have gone to affluent countries while just 0.3 per cent have gone to lowincome countries.

Guterres repeated his call for the G20 to set up a Task Force that brings together all countries with vaccine production capacities.