(4 minutes read)
· President Cyril Ramaphosa exhorted rich nations not to hoard more Covid-19 vaccines than they need and urged them to release their excess supply for poorer nations
· Failure to distribute them fairly will hold the risk of prolonging the pandemic, which can lead to further economic losses; he warned adding that the crisis had already battered the world economy
· Some countries are acquiring doses of vaccines four times more than their populations need. They have to offload such excess stocks to help poorer countries.
President Cyril Ramaphosa exhorted rich nations not to hoard more Covid-19 vaccines than they need and urged them to release their excess supply for poorer nations. Failure to distribute them fairly will hold the risk of prolonging the pandemic, which can lead to
further economic losses; he warned adding that the crisis had already battered the world economy.
During his virtual address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting yesterday, Ramaphosa was speaking on the theme global co-operation in tackling challenges from Covid-19. He pointed out that some countries are acquiring doses of vaccines four times more than their populations need. They have to offload such excess stocks to help poorer countries.
The uneven access to the vaccines has raised fears that supply chain disruptions will persist and impose economic costs even on those countries that have inoculated their populations.
A study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a US based organization, showed that failure to distribute vaccines to the poorest countries would impose a US $9-trillion loss on the world economy, with rich nations shouldering half of that cost.
SA has been one of the countries left scrambling to source Covid-19 vaccines. The government has estimated that it needs to reach 40-million people for vaccination. More than 30-million doses of vaccine have been promised to SA in direct deals with manufacturers and agreements with agencies including the Covax facility. These acquisitions of vaccines were made possible through the World Health Organization (WHO) and global vaccine alliance (Gavi)
