PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has called on wealthy countries to stop ‘hoarding’ excess COVID-19 vaccines that they had ordered but did not immediately need, saying the world needed to act together to fight the pandemic.
“We need those who have hoarded the vaccines to release the vaccines so that other countries can have them,” Ramaphosa told a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum on Tuesday.
“The rich countries of the world went out and acquired large doses of vaccines. Some countries even acquired up to four times what their population needs to the exclusion of other countries”.
He added that he was deeply concerned about the problem of ‘vaccine nationalism’, which, unless addressed, will endanger the recovery of all countries.
“Ending the pandemic worldwide will require greater collaboration on the rollout of vaccines, ensuring that no country is left behind in this effort. Here in South Africa, as in most countries, the pandemic has taken a heavy toll,” said Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa, who currently chairs the African Union, said African countries wanted access to vaccines as quickly as other nations.
South Africa’s COVID outbreak is the worst in Africa, and the continent as a whole is struggling to secure sufficient vaccines to start countrywide inoculation programmes for its 1.3 billion people.
“We are all not safe if some countries are vaccinating their people and other countries are not vaccinating,” Ramaphosa said.
“We all must act together in combating the coronavirus.”
Ramaphosa said the current economic downturn follows a decade of weak economic growth, which adds complexity and difficulty to South Africa’s economic recovery path.
“Over the course of nine months, and with the support of our social partners, the South African government rolled out a comprehensive set of measures to limit the social and economic impact of the pandemic,” he said.
“We massively expanded social protection on an unprecedented scale, providing a temporary increase in monthly social grants to around 17 million beneficiaries, and implementing a monthly Special COVID-19 Grant, which has reached six million unemployed people.”
(SOURCE: INSIDE POLITICS. Additional reporting by Reuters)
