African leaders highlight vaccine inequity in UN speeches
Source: AP
By PIA SARKAR
The inequity of COVID-19 vaccine distribution came into sharper focus Thursday as many of the African countries whose populations have little to no access to the life-saving shots stepped to the podium to speak at the U.N.’s annual meeting of world leaders.
Already, the struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic has featured prominently in leaders’ speeches over the past few days — many of them delivered remotely exactly because of the virus. Country after country acknowledged the wide disparity in accessing the vaccine, painting a picture so bleak that a solution has at times seemed impossibly out of reach.
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa pointed to vaccines as “the greatest defense that humanity has against the ravages of this pandemic.”
“It is therefore a great concern that the global community has not sustained the principles of solidarity and cooperation in securing equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines,” he said. “It is an indictment on humanity that more than 82% of the world’s vaccine doses have been acquired by wealthy countries, while less than 1% has gone to low-income countries.”
President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa speaks via video link during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York, on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-united-nations-general-assembly-united-nations-africa-science--11425d2449903ba448a96b2b0f106a70
