Your Excellency, Munir Akram, President of ECOSOC,
Your Excellency Volkan Bozkır, President of the General Assembly,
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
It is an honour to join you today, both on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres, and on behalf of WHO.
Today’s meeting could not be more timely. We have the tools to end this pandemic, but we are also facing a worldwide resurgence.
There is an alarming increase in cases and deaths around the globe.
The number of new cases per week has nearly doubled over the past two months.
This is approaching the highest rate of infection that we have seen so far during the pandemic.
There are several reasons for this: rapidly spreading variants, the inconsistent use and premature easing of public health measures, the understandable fatigue of populations with social restrictions, and the dramatic inequity in vaccine coverage.
Vaccine equity is the challenge of our time. And we are failing.
More than 832 million vaccine doses have been administered globally, but over 82% have gone to high- or upper middle-income countries, while low-income countries have received just 0.2%
On average in high-income countries, more than one in four people have received a vaccine. In low-income countries, it is almost one in 500. Let me repeat that: one in four versus one in 500.
The inequitable distribution of vaccines is not just a moral outrage, it is also economically and epidemiologically self-defeating.
The more transmission, the more variants. And the more variants that emerge, the more likely it is that they could evade vaccines.
And as long as the virus is circulating anywhere, the longer the global recovery will take.
We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. When HIV emerged 40 years ago, lifesaving antiretrovirals were developed, but more than a decade passed before the world’s poor got access to HIV treatment.
When the H1N1 pandemic erupted 12 years ago, vaccines were developed and approved, but by the time the world’s poor got access, the pandemic was over.
It is for this reason that WHO and our partners created the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and the COVAX vaccines pillar, to prevent the same thing happening again. We shouldn’t make the same mistake.
And we have shown that COVAX works. So far, we have distributed vaccines to 110 countries and economies.
But nowhere near enough. By now, we had expected to distribute more than 100 million doses, but so far we have only been able to distribute 40 million.
Some countries that were expecting to receive vaccines through COVAX haven’t received anything, none have received enough and now some countries are not receiving their second-round allocations on time, jeopardizing their plans for delivering vital second doses.
The problem is not getting vaccines out of COVAX; the problem is getting them in.
More funding is needed, but money doesn’t help if there are no vaccines to buy.
We know that some countries and companies plan to do their own bilateral vaccine donations, bypassing COVAX for their own political or commercial reasons.
A scarcity of supply is driving these bilateral agreements, which only increases vaccine inequity.
This is a time for partnership, not patronage.
WHO, Gavi, CEPI and our other COVAX partners are working day and night to find ways to accelerate production and supply.
WHO and our partners have established a COVAX manufacturing taskforce, to increase supply in the short term, and to build a platform for sustainable vaccine manufacturing to support regional health security.
This week I also joined discussions hosted by the African Union and my sister Ngozi at the World Trade Organization on how to rapidly increase production.
One exciting development is a new Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing that will be formed by the African Union, with the aim of establishing at least 5 vaccine productions hubs in Africa, potentially starting with three mRNA vaccine production facilities in Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa. The leaders of the three countries have already started to take concrete action. That was very encouraging.
We are also working on developing regional regulatory capacity through the African Medicines Agency, and Brazil also has big vaccine capacity and we’re trying to help Brazil with local production.
Excellencies, colleagues and friends,
We face serious challenges. But there are solutions. The solutions are in our hands. Here are three.
First, we call on countries who have enough vaccines to cover their entire populations many times over to make immediate donations to COVAX – not in several months’ time, but now. Please donate now.
Second, we must explore every option for increasing production, including voluntary licences, technology pools, the use of TRIPS flexibilities and the waiver of certain intellectual property provisions.
Nearly a year ago, WHO launched the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP, which was proposed by the President of Costa Rica and supported by 40 other countries, as a mechanism for sharing transparent and non-exclusive voluntary licenses.
Like COVAX, C-TAP holds enormous potential, but like COVAX, that potential has not been fulfilled.
WHO is also calling for expressions of interest to establish technology transfer hubs to assist countries acquire vaccine technology and know-how as rapidly as possible.
And third, we call on countries to invest in local vaccine manufacturing.
There are already many vaccine manufacturers in middle-income countries that have produced vaccines that have been prequalified by WHO, showing they can meet international standards for quality, safety and efficacy.
WHO will continue to provide technical assistance to these companies to build capacity and add additional manufacturing bases across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
We encourage all countries to support the draft resolution on strengthening local production of medicines and other health technologies which will be considered at the World Health Assembly next month.
And although today's discussion is about vaccines, we must remember that vaccines alone will not end this pandemic.
Many countries around the world have shown that this virus can be stopped with proven public health measures and strong systems that respond comprehensively, rapidly and consistently – basic public health measures.
We urge all countries to implement a tailored, measured, agile and evidence-based combination of measures, including surveillance, testing, contact tracing, supportive quarantine and compassionate care.
And we must continue to encourage people to take the personal precautions to keep themselves and others safe: physical distancing, masks, hand hygiene and ventilation. The whole response should be everybody’s business.
We may sound like a broken record, but these measures work.
Excellencies, my sisters and brothers,
I would argue that never in its 75-year history has the role of the United Nations been more important.
We cannot defeat this virus one country at a time. We cannot defeat this virus one region at a time. We can only do it with a coordinated global effort, based on the principles of solidarity, equity and sharing.
Because none of us are safe until all of us are safe. The solutions are in our hands.
I thank you.