By Asmau Ahmad
The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres has emphasised urgent need for the world to put a Global Vaccine Plan in place to get the pandemic under control as death toll passes four million.
In a statement, Guterres said that the global death toll due to COVID-19 officially passed four million late Wednesday, marking yet another “grim milestone” and underlining the urgent need for a Global Vaccine Plan.
“Many of us know this loss directly and feel its pain. We mourn mothers and fathers who gave guidance, sons and daughters who inspired us, grandmothers and grandfathers who shared wisdom, colleagues and friends who lifted our lives,” the UN chief said.
He said that while vaccines “offer a ray of hope” most of the world lagged behind as “the virus is outpacing vaccine distribution.”
“This pandemic is clearly far from over; more than half its victims died this year; many millions more are at risk if the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire,” he warned.
According to him, the more COVID-19 spreads the more variants we see, some of which are more transmissible, more deadly and more likely to undermine the effectiveness of current vaccines.
“Bridging the vaccine gap requires the greatest global public health effort in history,” he added.
He, therefore, called for a Global Vaccine Plan to, at least, doubles production of vaccines and ensures equitable distribution, using the UN-supported COVAX international COVID inoculation facility, as the main platform.
Guterres said an effective global plan would support implementation and financing, as well as increase countries’ readiness and capacity to roll out immunisation programmes, just as it would help tackle “the serious problem of vaccine hesitancy.”
“To realise this plan, I am calling for an Emergency Task Force that brings together all the countries with vaccine production capacities.
The secretary-general said that vaccine equity was “the greatest immediate moral test of our times. It is a practical necessity that until everyone is vaccinated, everyone is under threat,” he said.
