United Nations General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande has warned that the coronavirus vaccine should be given to anyone who needs it because even if one country is left out, the virus would continue to spread, AP reported.
“Inclusion is key, because without inclusion, the suffering of those who are already left behind will continue – and we cannot guarantee peace in that kind of a context,” he said in an interview with the news agency on Thursday.
The presidency of the General Assembly rotates annually on a regional basis. Muhammad-Bande, Nigeria’s ambassador to the UN, was elected as the assembly’s president by the African group in September.
Muhammad-Bande said the decision of those developing a coronavirus vaccine to make it widely available was important. “I believe that there will be protocols and agreements to guarantee affordability and accessibility to the product when it is available,” he said.
More than 170 countries are engaged in discussions to participate in the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which is focussed on speeding up the development of a drug and ensuring doses for all countries, as well as distributing the vaccines to the most high-risk segments of each population.
During the interview, Muhammad-Bande said that the coronavirus pandemic has defied earlier predictions that developing countries would be hit the hardest because many of them have poor healthcare systems. He said that death rates and infections are far lower in percentage terms in developing countries, including African countries, than the developed ones.
“The point that is absolutely fundamental, both in rich and poor countries, developed and developing countries, [is that] it mattered how you responded to the disease, whether you are poor or rich,” he said.
However, he added, developing countries that most rely on tourism and oil and other similar means were facing economic hardships. “Go to each country, see how the pandemic affected differentially rich and poor people,” he said. “This is [a] big issue and it has to be addressed.”
On a question on what needs to be urgently to bring normalcy in the world, he said that solidarity and partnership and empathy for the other were a “key to how we go forward”.
Globally, the coronavirus has infected 2.65 crore people so far, and 8.73 lakh have died due to it, according to Johns Hopkins University. The US has the most cases at 61.99 lakh so far, followed by Brazil with 40.91 lakh. The US also has the highest toll, followed by Brazil.
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