Your Excellency President Macky Sall,
Your Excellency Munir Akram, President of the Economic and Social Council,
Your Excellency Juan Sandoval Mendiolea, Vice President of the Economic and Social Council,
My colleagues, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva,
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
Professor Michael Kremer,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends - good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
We are at a critical point in the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are now facing a two-track pandemic, fuelled by inequity. This is a divide between the haves, and the have nots.
We have the tools to bring this pandemic under control, but only if we use those tools consistently and equitably.
While some countries have high vaccination rates and are seeing lower numbers of hospitalisations and deaths, other countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia are now facing steep epidemics.
There are several reasons for these increases, including the spread of variants of concern, more social mixing, the ineffective use of public health and social measures, and inequitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
So, in fact, these cases and deaths are largely avoidable.
That makes it even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal to prevent transmission: the tailored and consistent use of public health and social measures, in combination with equitable vaccination.
Through COVAX, we have so far been able to deliver nearly 96 million vaccines to 135 countries, as well as other essential health products.
But considering that the total vaccines delivered so far is over three billion, what is delivered through COVAX is actually peanuts.
But vaccine inequities and vaccine nationalism are further deepening the divide between high and lower-income nations.
Most lower-income countries still do not have enough vaccine to cover their most vulnerable and at-risk populations, let alone the rest of their populations.
We are working day in and day out to turn things around.
We are seeing encouraging signs, with commitments from vaccine producing countries to share hundreds of millions of doses.
The World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, and WHO are working together to accelerate access and delivery of vaccines and other COVID-19 health tools to developing countries.
If countries immediately share doses with COVAX and if manufacturers prioritise COVAX orders, we can vaccinate at least 10% of the population of every country by September, and at least 40% by the end of the year.
Vaccine equity is the best way to control the pandemic and get economies open and moving again.
Over the longer-term, we also need to greatly expand and invest in local production, so that the world will not be dependent upon just a few countries to produce vaccines and other essential health products, as President Sall indicated earlier.
The pandemic has shown that relying on a few companies to supply global public goods is limiting, and risky. The system is too fragile.
WHO is calling for the sharing of know-how, technology and licenses, and the waiving of intellectual property rights.
In May, the World Health Assembly adopted a landmark resolution on strengthening local production of medicines and other health technologies to improve access.
Over 100 countries co-sponsored the resolution, clearly signaling their commitment to changing the paradigm and distributing production capacity more equitably.
WHO is working with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to establish a technology transfer hub, which would include mRNA technology.
As the pandemic has shown, without local health security, there can be no global health security.
That is why the Sustainable Development Goals - which address an array of interlinked, essential targets - are so important.
And yet even before COVID-19 hit, the world was way off track to hit the global goals. The pandemic has set us back even further.
We now expect a shortfall of 710 million people to the billion more people covered by universal health coverage by 2023.
Strengthening health systems, particularly through primary health care, is essential for an equitable and resilient recovery.
At the global level, the pandemic has revealed a profound gap, a deficit of solidarity and sharing – sharing the data, information, sharing of resources, technology and tools that every nation needs to keep its people safe.
We have to learn the lessons of COVID-19.
Even as we respond to this pandemic, we have to prepare for the next one.
At the recent World Health Assembly, WHO Member States agreed to consider the proposal for a Pandemic Treaty.
WHO believes such a treaty can provide the basis for improved preparedness, detection and response, and improved cooperation to identify the origins of new pathogens.
A treaty would foster improved sharing, trust and accountability, and help strengthen national, regional and global capacities for global health security.
I will leave you with three key priorities.
First, countries need to urgently share doses with COVAX. We need an additional 250 million doses by September, and one billion by the end of the year.
We also need to provide financing for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator so that countries can receive the diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics - including oxygen - that they need.
Second, countries need to share their mRNA COVID-19 vaccines technologies and know-how with the WHO technology transfer hub and the COVAX Manufacturing Task Force, so that countries with manufacturing capacity can get to work.
Third, I ask countries, along with our multilateral partners, to support the proposal for a Pandemic Treaty.
It is time to move beyond the cycle of panic and neglect that has marked global emergency response for decades.
At the core of all of our efforts must be universal health coverage, based on strong primary health care, which is the cornerstone of social, economic and political stability.
The pandemic has highlighted that health is not a product of strong and prosperous nations; it is the means.
Investing in equitable health systems and an equitable global health architecture is an investment in the future.
I thank you.