South African leader Ramaphosa urges rich countries to stop ‘hoarding’ vaccines

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday urged the richest countries in the world to stop “hoarding” vaccines and called for an end to “vaccine nationalism”.

In remarks at the World Economic Forum’s virtual Davos Agenda event, Ramaphosa warned that some countries had ordered more vaccines than needed, and that this was counterproductive to the global recovery effort.

“Ending the global pandemic will require greater collaboration on vaccine deployment, ensuring that no country is left behind in this effort,” he said.

“The rich countries of the world have gone out and acquired large doses of vaccines from the developers and manufacturers of these vaccines, and some countries have even gone beyond and acquired up to four times what their populations need,” did he declare.

“This was aimed at storing these vaccines and this is now done to the exclusion of other countries in the world that need them the most,” he added, urging major economies to release their excess stocks for distribution to countries in need. development.

South Africa is the worst-hit country by Covid-19 on the continent, which has largely succeeded in preventing the kind of uncontrolled spread that has crippled the United States and much of Europe. As of Tuesday morning, the country had recorded more than 1.4 million cases with 41,117 deaths.

Speaking at a roundtable at the Davos Agenda event on Tuesday morning, Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong said the continent was facing a “very aggressive second wave” of the pandemic, with mortality increasing on average by 18% in the last 55 African Member States. the week.

“As a continent we need to recognize that vaccines won’t be there when we want them to be, but as such we really need to focus on the public health measures that we know are working,” he said. -he adds.

Ramaphosa, who is also president of the African Union, praised the continent’s collaborations on Covid-19 responses, including the African Medical Supplies Platform, which has offered assistance to national health systems, established collaborating centers regional and deployed community health workers to support testing and treatment efforts.

He also praised the progress of the African Vaccine Procurement Task Force, which he said was created when AU nations realized “how the richest countries in the world behave.”

AVATT has secured 270 million provisional doses directly for AU member states, in addition to the 600 million expected from the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative.