speech on health in covid 19
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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
COVAX – set up by GAVI, CEPI and WHO in April last year – has now secured contracts of 2 billion doses of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, which we are ready to rollout as soon as the vaccines are delivered.
And we also have the right of first refusal on an additional 1 billion doses.
However, this is where the current challenge is:
At present, 42 countries are rolling out safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. 36 of these are high-income countries and six are middle-income.
So there’s a clear problem that low- and most middle-income countries are not receiving the vaccine yet.
This is a problem we can and we must solve together through COVAX and the ACT-Accelerator.
At the outset, rich countries have bought up the majority of the supply of multiple vaccines.
Now we’re also seeing both high and middle-income countries, that are part of COVAX, making additional bilateral deals.
This potentially bumps up the price for everyone and means high-risk people in the poorest and most marginalized countries don’t get the vaccine.
And some companies and countries have not submitted critical data, which we need to issue Emergency Use Listings, which blocks the whole system of procurement and delivery.
Vaccine nationalism hurts us all and is self-defeating.
But on the flipside, vaccinating equitably saves lives, stablises health systems and would lead to a truly global economic recovery that stimulates job creation.
Importantly, it would also help us limit the virus’ opportunity to mutate.
The current variants show that the virus is doing its best to make itself more suitable to ongoing circulation within the human population.
This is normal of every virus but at present we’re helping it thrive if we don’t reduce transmission and vaccinate equitably.
Going forward, I want to see manufacturers prioritise supply and rollout through COVAX.
I urge countries that have contracted more vaccines than they will need, and are controlling the global supply, to also donate and release them to COVAX immediately, which is ready TODAY to rollout quickly.
And I urge countries and manufacturers to stop making bilateral deals at the expense of COVAX.
No country is exceptional and should cut the queue and vac
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