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At the annual meeting of world leaders developed by the United Nations, the leaders of the African States in unison emphasized the need for a more even distribution of the doses against the coronavirus and expressed discontent over the grabbing of the most important countries. rich. “It is an accusation against humanity that less than 1% of the world’s vaccine doses have gone to low-income countries,” said the president of South Africa.
The most frequent theme within the annual meeting of world leaders organized by the UN is the fight against the pandemic and the urgency of distributing vaccines to developing countries.
Yesterday, the president of the United States, Joe Biden announced that they will double their donation to one billion doses to distribute with the most deprived territories to aim to have 70% of the world population immunized by this time of 2022.
However, today it was the members of the African community who were in charge of highlighting the needs and urgencies to appease the coronavirus. “Without widespread vaccination and other public and social measures, the fourth wave on the continent is likely to be the worst, the most brutal yet,” said Benido Impouma, director of the WHO Africa program.
The speeches, with tones of claim, were caused by the existing inequity in the distribution of vaccines. Some states called for a relaxation in intellectual property rights to increase the production of immunizers.
The disparity between rich and needy, the focus of the conferences
The nations of Africa agreed on the difficulties in accessing vaccines, describing the harsh outlook and calling for immediate intervention from higher-income countries. The president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa pointed out as a “great concern” that the world community “has not supported the principles of solidarity and cooperation” to ensure equality at the entrance of inoculants, the “greatest defense of humanity against the ravages of the pandemic”.
“It is an accusation against humanity that more than 82% of the world’s vaccine doses have been purchased by rich countries, while less than 1% has been destined for low-income countries,” he said.
For his part, the president of Angola, João Lourenço tried to “shocking” the irregularities between nations due to the availability of vaccines. “These disparities allow the administration of third doses, in some cases, while in other cases, such as in Africa, the vast majority of the population has not even received the first dose,” he said.
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The head of state of Chad, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno took a different approach in his presentation and related inequality as a danger for everyone since the virus “knows no continents, borders, less national or social status” and that “the salvation of humanity ”depends on global access to doses. “Countries and regions that are not vaccinated will be a source of spread and development of new variants of the virus,” he synthesized.
The most striking reference at the summit on Thursday came through the top leader of Namibia, Hage Geingob, who spoke of “Apartheid Vaccine”: “We wish to affirm that saving lives can only be successful once we eliminate Apartheid from vaccines” , he asserted.
Impouma stated during the weekly press video conference that the number of new Covid-19 infections is slowly decreasing in Africa. There are around 108 thousand positive cases, more than 3,000 lives lost in the last week and 16 countries “in resurgence”. “This fight is far from over,” he said.
With AP and Reuters
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