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UN chief urges global plan to reverse unfair COVID vaccine access

Published:Wednesday | February 17, 2021 | 11:50 AM
In this image made from UNTV video, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a UN Security Council high-level meeting on COVID-19 recovery focusing on vaccinations, chaired by British Foreign Secretary Dominc Raab, Wednesday, February 17, 2021, at UN headquarters, in New York. (UNTV via AP)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sharply criticised the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday, saying 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccinations and demanding a global effort to get all people in every nation vaccinated as soon as possible.

The UN chief told a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council that 130 countries have not received a single dose of vaccine and declared that “at this critical moment, vaccine equity is the biggest moral test before the global community.”

Guterres called for an urgent Global Vaccination Plan to bring together those with the power to ensure fair vaccine distribution -- scientists, vaccine producers and those who can fund the effort.

The secretary-general called on the world’s major economic powers in the Group of 20 to establish an emergency task force to establish a plan and coordinate its implementation and financing.

He said the task force should have the capacity “to mobilise the pharmaceutical companies and key industry and logistics actors.”

Guterres said Friday’s meeting of the Group of Seven major industrialised nations “can create the momentum to mobilise the necessary financial resources.”

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, whose country holds the Security Council presidency this month, urged the UN’s most powerful body to adopt a resolution calling for cease-fires in conflict zones to allow the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.

Thirteen ministers were scheduled to address the meeting on improving access to COVID-19 including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Britain says more than 160 million people are at risk of being excluded from coronavirus vaccinations because they live in countries engulfed in conflict and instability, including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

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