Your Excellency Abdulla Shahid,
Your Excellency Collen Vixen Kelapile,
Your Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
Your Excellency the Right Honourable Helen Clark,
Your Excellency Michelle Bachelet Jeria,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
I would like to thank the President of the 76th Session of the General Assembly for convening this meeting.
It comes at a critical time.
In some countries, high vaccine coverage, combined with the lower severity of Omicron, is driving a narrative that the pandemic is over.
But it’s not – not when more than 60 thousand people a week are dying from a preventable and treatable disease;
Not when 83% of the population of Africa is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine;
Not when health systems continue to strain and crack under the caseload;
Not when we have a highly transmissible virus circulating almost unchecked, with too little surveillance to track its evolution.
And at the same time as all of this is occurring, low vaccine coverage and low testing rates in many countries are creating the ideal conditions for dangerous new variants to emerge.
We are at a critical juncture.
We can end the pandemic as a global health emergency this year.
We have the tools. We have the know-how.
But we are at increased risk of squandering that opportunity due to the vast inequities that have undermined the response to this pandemic.
On current trends, 116 countries are off track for our shared target of vaccinating 70% of the population of every country by the middle of this year.
Instead of the confusion and incoherence that has fueled this pandemic, we need cooperation and collaboration in the face of common threats.
That’s why, at the beginning of the pandemic, WHO and partners establish the ACT Accelerator and the COVAX pillar to fast-track equitable access to vaccines and other countermeasures.
We are now overcoming some of the supply constraints we faced last year, with more than 1 billion vaccine doses shipped.
Together with UNICEF, we have developed a robust, global mechanism to support country readiness for vaccine rollout.
I would note that in many countries, the issues we see are less to do with absorptive capacity, and more to do with political leadership.
Mostly recently, to strengthen capacities for local production of vaccines and other health products in low- and middle-income countries, we established the WHO Technology Transfer Hub in South Africa.
We have just announced the first six African countries to receive technology from the hub to produce their own mRNA vaccines: Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia.
In closing, let me leave you with three priorities:
First, to vaccinate the world, we ask all countries to support WHO’s global target to see 70% of the population of every country vaccinated by the middle of this year.
Second, to save lives now, we ask all countries to contribute their fair share to fully fund the ACT Accelerator, especially for the immediate grant funding need of US$ 16 billion.
Compared with the costs of another year of economic turmoil, US$ 16 billion is frankly peanuts.
Third, to build back better, we ask all countries to engage constructively in negotiating a new legally-binding accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, as agreed at last year’s Special Session of the World Health Assembly.
I hope that by continuing to work with the PGA and with all of you, we can reach our shared 70 percent vaccination target, bring the pandemic under control and drive a truly inclusive and sustainable recovery.
I thank you.