UN chief urges world leaders to help vaccinate 70% of population

  02 November 2021    Read: 449
UN chief urges world leaders to help vaccinate 70% of population

Meeting the challenge of vaccinating 70% of the world's population by mid-2022 requires coordinating the efforts of world leaders, solving the problem of lack of funding for vaccine production, and distributing vaccines equally, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his appeal in connection with a threshold of 5 mln victims of the coronavirus, AzVision.az reports citing TASS. 

"I urge world leaders to fully support the Global Vaccination Strategy I launched with the World Health Organization last month. We need to get vaccines into the arms of 40% of people in all countries by the end of this year — and 70% by mid-2022. I call on them to deliver with urgency and scale, address funding gaps and coordinate their actions for success," he said.

He continued, "This devastating milestone reminds us that we are failing much of the world. While wealthy countries are rolling-out third doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, only about 5% of people in Africa are fully vaccinated. This is a global shame."

To promote the global vaccination campaign, the UN and WHO have established the COVAX mechanism - states provide vaccines produced by them, which are later sent to countries in need. The UN has repeatedly noted that manufacturing countries do not provide enough drugs to ensure the required rates of vaccination, especially in African countries.


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