VACCINES: Pressure continues to grow on member nations to get COVID-19 shots to the poor

ROME — From the opening moments of the Group of 20 summit Saturday, the leaders of the world’s largest economies wanted to send a strong message about ending the coronavirus pandemic: During an unconventional group photograph, they were joined on the dais by doctors in white coats and first responders from the Italian Red Cross.

In his remarks opening the meeting — the first gathering in person for the group since the pandemic struck — Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi pointed to the stark disparity in access to vaccines between richer and poorer countries.

“Going it alone is simply not an option,” said Draghi, whose country is hosting the summit. Now, he added, the world could “finally look at the future with great — or with some — optimism.”

But as the leaders gathered to discuss plans to protect against future pandemics, health experts and activists expressed concerns that the world’s richest nations were still not doing enough to help people in poor nations survive the current one.

In an open letter to the G-20, the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged the leaders to “to help stem the pandemic by expanding access to vaccines and other tools for the people and places where these are in shortest supply.”

Advisers said President Joe Biden, who has promised to make the United States an “arsenal of vaccines,” would not announce concrete plans related to closing the gap between rich and poor nations on vaccination rates. A senior administration official said Biden had met with a group of leaders early in the day and pushed them to support debt relief and allow more emergency financing to reach poor countries whose economies have been battered by the pandemic.

French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to use the summit to press fellow European Union leaders to be more generous in donating vaccines to lowincome countries and has told reporters he expects the G-20 to confirm an additional $100 billion to support Africa’s economies..

While wealthy nations are offering people third vaccine doses and increasingly inoculating children, poor countries have administered an estimated four doses per 100 people, according to the World Health Organization.

Biden said in June the United States would buy 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine doses for poorer nations. In September, he announced an additional 500 million Pfizer doses, along with the promise of an additional $750 million for vaccine distribution.

Only about 300 million of those doses are expected to be shipped this year.

Erin Schaff / New York Times President Joe Biden greets President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They have discussed a deal to provide 110 million doses of vaccine to the African continent.