African leaders use UN stage to highlight vaccine inequity
ANGOLA PRESIDENT LOURENCO SAYS IT WAS SHOCKING TO SEE THE DISPARITY
The inequity of Covid-19 vaccine distribution came into sharper focus yesterday as many of the African countries whose populations have little to no access to the life-saving shots stepped to the podium to speak at the UN’s annual meeting of world leaders.
Already, the struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic has featured prominently in leaders’ speeches over the past few days, many of them delivered remotely exactly because of the virus.
Country after country acknowledged the wide disparity in accessing the vaccine, painting a picture so bleak that a solution has at times seemed impossibly out of reach.
Shocking concern
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa pointed to vaccines as “the greatest defence that humanity has against the ravages of this pandemic. It is therefore a great concern that the global community has not sustained the principles of solidarity and cooperation in securing equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines,’’ he said.
Angola president Joao Lourenco said it was “shocking to see the disparity between some nations and others with respect to availability of vaccines.’’
The US, Britain, France, Germany and Israel are among the countries that have begun administering boosters or announced plans to do so.
On Wednesday, during a global vaccination summit convened virtually on the sidelines of the General Assembly, President Joe Biden announced that the United States would double its purchase of Pfizer’s Covid-19 shots to share with the world to 1 billion doses, with the goal of vaccinating 70 per cent of the global population within the next year.
The move comes as world leaders, aid groups and global health organisations have growing increasingly vocal about the slow pace of global vaccinations and the inequity of access to shots between residents of wealthier and poorer nations.
WHO slams rich countries
The World Health Organisation says only 15% of promised donations of vaccines, from rich countries that have access to large quantities of them, have been delivered. The UN health agency has said it wants countries to fulfil their dose-sharing pledges “immediately’’ and make shots available for programs that benefit poor countries and Africa in particular.
Biden, earlier this year, broke with European allies to embrace waivers to intellectual property rights for the vaccines, but there was no movement Wednesday toward the necessary global consensus on the issue required under World Trade Organisation rules.
While some non-governmental organisations have called those waivers vital to boosting global production of the shots, US officials concede it is not the most constricting factor in the inequitable vaccine distribution _ and some privately doubt the waivers for the highly complex shots would lead to enhanced production.