UN chief Antonio Guterres warns ‘vaccine nationalism’ is moving at full speed

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that “vaccine nationalism” is moving “at full speed,” leaving poor people around the globe watching preparations for inoculations against the coronavirus in some rich nations and wondering if and when they will be vaccinated.The UN chief on Wednesday reiterated his call for vaccines to be treated as “a global public good,” available to everyone, everywhere on the planet, especially in Africa. And he appealed for $4.2 billion in the next two months for the World Health Organisation”s COVAX programme, an ambitious project to buy and deliver coronavirus vaccines for the world”s poorest people.

After a virtual UN meeting with the African Union, Guterres said at a news conference that financing COVAX is the only way to guarantee vaccines will be available in Africa and other developing areas.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a high-level UN General Assembly meeting last week on COVID-19 that “the light at the end of the tunnel is growing steadily brighter” to end the pandemic. But, he added, vaccines “must be shared equally as global public goods, not as private commodities that widen inequalities and become yet another reason some people are left behind.”

Tedros said WHO”s cash-strapped ACT-Accelerator programme to quickly develop and distribute vaccines fairly, which includes the COVAX project, “is in danger of becoming no more than a noble gesture” without major new funding.