Your Excellency President Macky Sall,
Your Excellency President Nana Akufo-Addo,
Your Excellency President Paul Kagame,
Your Excellency Olaf Scholz,
Your Excellency President Ursula von der Leyen,
Your Excellency Moussa Faki Mahamat,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning; it is an honour to join you today.
The invention of vaccines changed the trajectory of global health.
And there can be no doubt that the development of vaccines against COVID-19 has changed the trajectory of this pandemic.
The development and approval of several vaccines in record time is a triumph for science that sets a new standard for what is possible.
I congratulate Dr Uğur Şahin, Dr Özlem Türeci and their team at BioNTech for their efforts in developing a product that has saved so many lives.
We simply would not be where we are without you.
The tragedy, of course, is that billions of people are yet to benefit from the life-saving power of vaccines.
We have the tools to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control this year. But we are being undermined by rampant inequity.
In many countries with high vaccine coverage, a dangerous narrative has emerged that the pandemic is over.
In fact, more than half of the world is still struggling with low vaccine coverage and low testing capacity. Currently, 116 countries are off track for our shared target of vaccinating 70% of the population of every country by the middle of this year.
In Africa, 83% of people still have not received a single dose.
This is not only a moral failure, it is also an epidemiological failure, which is creating the ideal conditions for new variants to emerge.
Local production is critical to bridging this gap – not only now, but for the future.
WHO is committed to working with all partners to ensure every country can access vaccines and other tools to protect the health of their populations.
We can only achieve that goal through genuine cooperation on local vaccine development, production, distribution and uptake, using a diverse range of platforms.
So we welcome BioNTech’s initiative to increase vaccine production in Africa.
This innovative, scalable effort will help to meet short-term needs, as well as longer-term projects like BioNTech’s planned malaria vaccine.
This new effort has involved cooperation with WHO and the new mRNA technology transfer hub we have launched with multiple governments, companies and scientific bodies in South Africa, which I had the opportunity to visit last week.
Supplemented by temporary intellectual property waivers, the hub will help to build capacity in Africa for controlling COVID-19 and other preventable diseases.
The Hub is intended not only for vaccines but for other products, such as therapeutics and diagnostics. Collaboration on training, research and strengthening regulatory systems will also be key.
I offer my sincere thanks to Germany and the European Commission for their critical political and financial support for WHO, Afrigen, and the South African government to support local vaccine production and the mRNA hub.
Once again, I wish BioNTech every success in this endeavour, and I have every confidence that together, we can be successful.
As Dr Uğur said, cooperation is key.
WHO is committed to working with you, with all partners, and with our brothers and sisters from Africa to build the continent’s capacities and self-reliance.
WHO will continue to support every effort to expand access to safe and effective vaccines and medicines globally, to bring the pandemic under control and drive a truly inclusive and sustainable recovery.
I thank you. Vielen dank.