The United Nations chief, Antonio Guterres has lambasted the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccine in the world. He pointed out that till now 75% of the vaccine has been administered by just 10 countries.
He further added that 130 countries have not got a single dose of vaccination which is a big concern. He said this while addressing a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council.
The meeting agreed that this wide gap can lead to a many problems in the future and the fight against COVID-19.
“Rich countries are vaccinating people but many other parts of the world are not. You’re never going to get rid of COVID-19 if you have it spreading in some parts of the world and potentially mutating, and potentially in the future making vaccines not work.”
“Less than 1 percent of COVID-19 vaccines so far globally have been administered in the 32 countries currently facing the most severe humanitarian crises.”
Dominic Raab, UK Foreign Secretary has asked the UN’s most powerful body to play their role in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine in the conflict-hit areas.
“Humanitarian organisations and UN agencies need the full backing of the council to be able to carry out the job we are asking them to do,” said Barbara Woodward, the UK’s ambassador to the UN.
Woodward said that even in the past vaccination drives have been done in conflict hit areas after cease fire. She gave example of a two day pause in fighting in Afghanistan. In 2001, 35,000 health workers vaccinated around 5.7 million children against polio.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister on Tuesday said that Mexico will emphasize the need of equal access of vaccine to all countries.
He said that countries mainly in Latin America are having troubles procuring the vaccines while the vaccine producing countries are getting most of the jabs.
COVAX programme, an initiative taken by the World Health Organization (WHO) to buy and provide vaccine to poor countries around the world has already failed in achieving its goal.
Many developing nations have also rushed past few weeks to sign their private deals to buy vaccines, unwilling to wait for COVAX.
