Roll up your sleeve and wait. The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres backs plans to jab every person on the planet with coronavirus vaccine as the pharmaceutical industry guarantees 1.5 billion doses per month are now ready for global distribution.
The veteran Portuguese socialist was addressing an international vaccine equity summit Friday when he outlined his support for global jabs during an event that saw world leaders commit $4.8 billion to drive lower-income nations boost vaccination rates.
Guterres said in order to reach the billions who have so far not received coronavirus vaccine shots, countries needed to “fulfil and accelerate dose-sharing and donation commitments” to U.N. agencies and allies tasked with supplying the mass vaccinations.
There is also the need to expand the range of people open to vaccinations.
“And it means having strong national vaccine-delivery systems at the ready – including efforts to counter disinformation and get vaccines into arms. I also call on countries to commit new funding for the ACT-Accelerator and COVAX this year,” Guterres outlined.
He said the summit was “a critical reminder that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. We’re seeing 1.5 million new cases each day. Large outbreaks are spreading in Asia”, he continued together with “a new wave sweeping across Europe.”
The U.N. chief lamented the slowness of some vaccine take ups even as “a third of the planet is still lacking even one dose” saying trust is essential in government authorities.
“We are far from our target of every country reaching 70 per cent vaccination coverage by the middle of this year,” he stressed, adding with new variants emerging roughly every four months, “time is of the essence.”
He said “we need to help all countries prepare for future pandemics by multiplying the number of countries able to locally produce tests, vaccines and treatments.”