Africa-Press – Tanzania. PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan’s plea to wealthy countries to end Covid-19 vaccine inequality is apparently drawing a positive response after France committed 60 million doses to the COVAX facility in response to the imbalance.
Access to Covid-19 vaccines topped the agenda of most African leaders at the UN General Assembly last week, with most of them expressing huge concerns over massive disparity in the distribution of the vaccines across the globe.
According to a report published in the Region- Week Newsletter on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced his country’s pledge to increase the number of Covid-19 vaccine doses donated, from 60 million to 120 million.
The move is aimed to help combat massive global vaccine inequity, and to further support Unicef in helping administer vaccines. President Macron also pledged to release 20 per cent of its Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) allocation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to support countries across Africa’s green recovery and another 333 million euros to support the Global Partnership for Education, for girls’ education.
“The Special Drawing Rights will be used to fund Covid- 19 vaccines, investment in economic recovery, and access to life-saving medical treatments,” stated the RegionWeek Newsletter.
Giving her maiden speech to the 76th United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) Summit last Thursday, President Samia pleaded with the wealthy nations to assist developing countries in addressing socio-economic impact of the Covid-19, expressing a concern on the inequality in supply of vaccines.
The Tanzanian leader said Covid-19 vaccines must be equitably distributed to successfully tame the deadly virus, noting that the majority of vaccines have been administered in high and upper-middle-income countries.
“Globally, when Covid-19 vaccines were being developed, some of us were hopeful that this would mean something good to all of humanity. Nevertheless, we have come to learn that the virus is moving faster than the global production and distribution of vaccines,” she said.
President Samia warned that given the current pace, it is less likely that the world will meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) threshold of vaccinating at least 40 per cent of people in every country by the end of 2021, and at least 70 per cent by the first half of 2022. “The level of vaccine inequity that we see is appalling.
It is truly disheartening to see that whilst most of our countries have inoculated less than two per cent of our populace and thus, seek more vaccines for our people, other countries are about to roll out the third dose, calling it booster vaccine,” she explained.
On her suggestion on the need for developing nations to be assisted in addressing impacts of the pandemic, President Samia also commended the multilateral financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for their efforts in saving many economies from collapsing. These kinds of interventions are important.
Expounding further, President Samia said: “Covid-19 pandemic has reminded us of how vulnerable we are as individual countries regardless of our size, wealth, or geography.
As we meet here today, we have less than a decade ahead to meet our collective commitment to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.
The move by France to extend 60 million doses of Covid- 19 vaccines to the COVAX facility was applauded by the President of African Development Bank Group Dr Akinwumi Adesina through his twitter handle.
“I applaud the great leadership of President Emmanuel Macron_ _to provide to Africa 20per cent of France’s share of $650 billion Special Drawing Rights issued by the IMF. You promised and delivered. Great example. Bravo President.”
Meanwhile, President Samia has advocated against use of force in administering the Covid-19 vaccines in the country, maintaining that people should be voluntarily vaccinated and relevant authorities should embark on massive campaigns for raising awareness.
The president observed this while officiating at the 36th Annual General Meeting of the Association of Local Authorities of Tanzania (ALAT) in Dodoma, yesterday. “A person may not be ready to be vaccinated only because of lack of relevant knowledge on benefits of the vaccine… go and educate the public on why they should get Covid-19 jabs,” noted President Samia.
On July 24, this year, Tanzania received the first batch of 1,058,400 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine donated by the United States government through the COVAX arrangement.
In mounting efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19, the government over the past two months rolled out its countrywide vaccination campaign, whereas over 400,000 people have already taken the Covid- 19 jabs.
The country has ordered 2 million doses of sinopharm Covid-19 vaccines from China in response to an increase in the number of people seeking life-saving jabs.
