Mudavadi hails developing countries over access Covid vaccines

Africa-Press – Kenya. Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has applauded Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member countries under the leadership of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev for spearheading a rigorous campaign to make COVID-19 vaccines accessible.

Speaking at the summit-level meeting in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, on Thursday, Mudavadi said the NAM Contact Group on COVID-19 did a tremendous job in lobbying for not just availability, but more access to vaccines.

He made the remarks while presenting Kenya’s status update on measures being undertaken by the government to cushion its citizens from the negative economic effects of the pandemic

“If there is a global lesson learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the unequal access to vaccines across the world. Kenya therefore, supports the COVAX initiative, but also calls for access diversification through the equitable spread of vaccine manufacturing, diagnostics and treatments for other potential pandemics,” said Mudavadi.

NAM is a forum of 120 countries that (ostensibly) are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The countries of the NAM usually considered developing or the Third World, represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations’ members and hold 55 per cent of the world population.

Mudavadi said the COVAX initiative campaign guaranteed rapid, fair and equitable access to vaccines by people and countries regardless of their wealth.

The Prime Cabinet Secretary who represented President William Ruto at the Baku Summit, further pointed out that the campaign was a gesture towards not only promoting equity but enhancing world peace and cooperation.

“Like other NAM countries, Kenya is continuously looking at meaningful multilateral partnerships beyond mitigating COVID-19,” he said.

With the pandemic having significantly affected many economies worldwide, Mudavadi further told the summit that Kenya supports NAM on the need for the international community to boost debt relief and restructuring to help African countries mitigate the effect of COVID-19.

He said such support should be through investments and the implementation of practical climate-change adaptation programmes. Kenya is burdened by debt obligations.

“Kenya supports the NAM in formulating a strategy to promote the common interests of its Member States on post-pandemic recovery particularly establishing a UN High-Level Panel on Post-COVID Global Recovery,” said Mudavadi

He urged NAM members to “be your brothers’ keeper” in efforts to re-engineer the dwindling fortunes in the economies.

Mudavadi however also told the Summit that Kenya is yet to recover fully from the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy, despite various interventions that have been undertaken by the government to try and support its citizen to get back on their feet.

“Livelihoods and businesses are still struggling after COVID-19 disruption of both internal and international markets for goods and services. Unemployment is high, as scarcity of food resulting from high prices threatens the health of the majority of Kenyans. Of the 57 million Kenyans, 17% or 8.9 million are were experiencing extreme poverty in 2022 exacerbated in part by COVID-19,” Mudavadi told the summit.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) data, by the end of 2022 the pandemic had claimed about 6.5 million lives worldwide. More than 600 million people were infected and unprecedented livelihoods were disrupted.

Back in Kenya, Mudavadi said, COVID-19 cases stand at an estimated 343,000 with at least 5,688 deaths having been reported.

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