Developing countries call on the world’s rich at the UN: stop hoarding vaccines

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 22 (Reuters) – Leaders in developing countries warned the United Nations General Assembly this week that the hoarding of the COVID-19 vaccine by rich countries leaves the door open for the emergence of new variants of coronavirus even as infections are already on the rise in many places.

The Philippines warned of an “artificial drought” of vaccines in poor countries, Peru said international solidarity had failed and Ghana lamented vaccine nationalism. The UN chief has called the inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines “obscenity.”

“Rich countries are hoarding life-saving vaccines, while poor countries are waiting for nets,” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday at the high-level meeting.

“They are now talking about recalls, while developing countries consider half doses just to get by. It is shocking beyond imaginable and must be condemned for what it is – a selfish act. which cannot be justified either rationally or morally. “

About 35% of people who received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine were from high-income countries, and at least 28% were from Europe and North America, according to Reuters data from countries that report such figures.

Meanwhile, vaccination rates in some countries, including Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are below 1%, according to a Reuters tracker.

The African continent is the hardest hit by vaccine nationalism, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said on Wednesday. About 900 million Africans still need vaccines to reach the 70% threshold reached in other parts of the world.

Colombian President Ivan Duque has said COVID-19 vaccines must be distributed fairly to avoid the creation of new, more formidable variants of the coronavirus. Read more

“If delays in the equal distribution of vaccines continue in all countries, we, humanity, are exposed to new variants that attack us with greater ferocity. Global immunity requires solidarity, therefore hoarding does not. cannot exist in the face of the needs of others, ”Duque said Tuesday. .

Some countries have acquired enough doses for six or seven times their population and announced third booster doses, Duque added, while others were unable to give any injections.

BIDEN UPS VACCINE DONATIONS

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday pledged to purchase an additional 500 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to donate to other countries, bringing total US donations to more than 1.1 billion doses as it is under increasing pressure to share its supplies with the rest of the population. world. Read more

“This is a crisis at all levels,” Biden said, launching a virtual summit on the sidelines of the General Assembly aimed at increasing immunization rates around the world.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in his UN address on Tuesday, reiterated China’s goal of delivering 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the world by the end of the year. Read more

ONE Campaign, a nonprofit focused on poverty and public health, said the U.S. donation will not be enough and that other wealthy countries must urgently increase their support for global immunization efforts or risk leaving more than 2.3 billion people worldwide still unvaccinated by September next year. .

“We are past the emergency point to end this pandemic. Everyone is on the verge of agreeing to a global plan to immunize 70% of the world’s population,” said Tom Hart, Acting Chief Executive Officer by ONE, in a press release.

Peru’s new left-wing president Pedro Castillo told the assembly he was proposing an international agreement between heads of state and COVID-19 vaccine patent owners “to ensure universal access” to vaccines .

“The battle against the pandemic has shown us the failure of the international community to cooperate on the principle of solidarity,” Castillo said.

Peru has suffered the world’s highest death rate from the virus and has so far fully vaccinated less than 30% of its population.

Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, told leaders that the Islamic Republic faces another obstacle in its attempt to immunize its people – US sanctions.

“The sanctions, especially drug sanctions at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, are crimes against humanity,” Raisi said on Tuesday.

Food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are exempt from U.S. sanctions reimposed on Tehran in 2018, but the measures have deterred some foreign banks from processing financial transactions with Iran.

Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols, Jeff Mason, Marcelo Rochabrun, Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool

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