If the United Nations was created from the ashes of World War II, what will come from the COVID-19 crisis?
Many world leaders at this week’s United Nations Virtual Summit expect it to be a vaccine made to be obtained and affordable for all countries, rich and poor. , UN calls are probably in vain.
“Should other people die?” Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a COVID-19 survivor, said the way forward is uncertain.
More than 150 countries have joined COVAX, where richer countries agree to buy potential vaccines and financial assistance for access to the poorest, but the absence of Washington, Beijing and Moscow means that the reaction to a fitness crisis like no other during the UN’s 75 years is far from global, instead , the 3 powers have made indistinct promises of percentage of any vaccine they develop, probably after helping their own citizens first.
This week’s UN data collection can serve simply as a call for attention, said Gayle Smith, president of ONE Campaign, a non-profit organization fighting preventable diseases that develops panels to measure the contribution of the world’s toughest nations to vaccine equity.
“It is sufficient for some G20 countries to realize that a fair vaccine is the key to ending this virus and reopening the global economy,” he said.
With only a few weeks for countries to succeed in COVAX, co-directed through the United Nations World Health Organization, many heads of state are the United Nations assembly as a high-profile opportunity to mock, convince and even shame.
Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, presses on the illusory nature of borders and wealth: “The virus has taught us that we are all in danger and that there is no special coverage for him or for a specific class. “
The president of Palau’s Pacific island country COVID, Tommy Remengesau Jr. , warned against selfishness: “Vaccine hoarding will harm us all. “
And Rwandan President Paul Kagame called for a universal will to return to normal: “Ensuring fairness in vaccines, treatments and diagnoses will drive the end of the pandemic for all. “
Just two days after some two hundred speeches by world leaders, it became clear that the urgent need for a vaccine would be discussed with almost everyone. Given the mind-blowing demanding situations ahead, this is no surprise.
“We have never faced a scenario where another 7. 8 billion international people want a vaccine around the same time,” said John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this month.
This has led to sensitive questions: who will get vaccinated first? Who is personally committed to receiving them? This week’s speeches make it clear that these problems have existential significance.
The search for the vaccine will not be a “purely commercial act,” Iraq said. Not even “a question of competition,” Turkey said.
“We will have to eliminate vaccine policy,” Kazakhstan said. “We want a genuine globalization of compassion,” Slovakia said.
The Dominican Republic deployed all capital letters in a statement: “WE DEMAND that this vaccine be available to all humans on the planet. “More mildly, Mozambique warned that “nationalism and aisticism in the face of a pandemic are, for us, a recipe for failure. “
Regardless of their reputation at home or on the world stage, leaders are setting up a non-unusual floor as the world approaches one million pandemic deaths.
“The COVID-19 vaccine will have to be considered as a global public good. Let’s be transparent about it,” Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented to the General Assembly pointing out in an interview with the UN media arm: “To think that we can keep him and let the deficient suffer is a stupid mistake. “
It is clear whether the comments of world leaders, delivered in a melee at UN headquarters, but in videos recorded from national capitals, will make all the difference. .
“It is vital that we continue to deliver these speeches, but at the end of the day, speeches will have no effect if there are no genuine measures in a position to ensure that poor countries, and the poorest of the poor, have access. “to the vaccine, Tfinishai Mafuma told the South African-based social justice organization Section 27. It is a component of a coalition that is pushing for more affordable and accessible medicines.
South Africa, like many African countries, is experiencing the fatal consequences of having to wait. Health experts say 12 million Africans have died in the decade it took for HIV drugs to succeed on the continent.
Mafuma’s compatriot, Shabir Madhi, principal investigator of a clinical trial in South Africa of the vaccine that the University of Oxford is deceting with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, a little more optimistic. That the world’s largest richest countries have joined COVAX “is promising,” he said. Said.
But while this week’s passionate speech at the UN will make a difference, Madhi said, it’s still “hard to say. “
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