WTO warns Latin America’s economic recovery is “lagging behind” due to lack of COVID-19 vaccination

Economic recovery for all countries can only happen by expanding immunization, The World Trade Organization (WTO) warned this Saturday at the G7 summit, which warned of the risk that Latin America and Africa could be left behind after the pandemic.

WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said Projections of the economic recovery point to two increasingly divergent paths: developed countries, where immunization is progressing at a good pace, and most low-income countries, which in many cases have not even started receiving doses.

“For the economy to recover, we need to administer injections to the people and this is what will spur growth,” the Nigerian said in a virtual meeting with reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Cornwall (South West England).

“We see that Latin America and Africa, in particular, are lagging behind”, warned the head of the WTO, while comparing this trajectory with the ascending line marked by the United States and Asia.

These differences are closely related to unequal access to covid-19 preparations, said Okonjo-Iweala, who considered that “the vaccine policy is a commercial policy”.

The multilateral organization sees a “robust” reactivation of the world market, which will hover around 8% this year and remain at 4% next year.

One of the main missions of the G7 summit in Cornwall is to lay the foundations for a “fair and uniform” economic recovery, according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his opening speech.

The WTO hopes that a global agreement will be reached within it so that developing countries have better access to vaccines, despite the fact that its members are very divided on whether this should go hand in hand with a temporary suspension of patents.

In this sense, Okonjo-Iweala welcomed the progress made this week among WTO countries, which have agreed to start negotiations on a text to expand access to anticovid tools, including a possible suspension of patents.

The 164 members of the organization were open to a negotiation on the means of making COVID-19 vaccines, therapies and other technologies more accessible, although there are still differences in this regard, mainly between developing countries and European nations.

Although the Director-General of the WTO preferred not to say whether she supported the suspension of patents, In order to be free to mediate between the parties, she hoped negotiations would progress ahead of the agency’s ministerial meeting scheduled for July.

“It can be difficult because some positions are far from each other, but there is a way and I would like to see some kind of progress by July,” he said.

While welcoming the intention of the G7 countries to pledge to donate one billion doses to developing countries, he urged “50,000 million dollars (41,000 million euros) are needed to accelerate the deployment of vaccination. With these means, he estimated that 40% of the world’s population would have been vaccinated by the end of this year and 60% by the end of next year.

However, called for the debate not to be reduced to the suspension of vaccine patentsRather, it covers other issues, such as export restrictions, which complicate the vital supply chain for the production of the formulas.

Every vaccine approved against covid so far requires a multitude of components that are produced in different countries. He gave the example of Pfizer’s vaccine, which contains 180 ingredients, manufactured at 86 sites in 19 countries.

“It shows how complicated and sophisticated supply chains are, and you need to make sure that export restrictions are kept to a minimum,” Okonjo-Iweala said before recalling that the WTO currently has 53 measures. of that type. start of the pandemic.

By Enrique Rubio (EFE)

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