Addressing the “Davos Agenda” conference of the World Economic Forum yesterday, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, warned rich nations who have bought and hoarded more Covid-19 vaccines than they need, that they risk prolonging the pandemic.
Stressing the need for global cooperation in tackling challenges from Covid-19 Ramaphosa said, “We are all not safe if some countries are vaccinating their people and other countries are not vaccinating,” he said.
Ramaphosa, who is also the current African Union chairman, said a Covid-19 African vaccine-acquisition task team has secured a provisional 270-million doses for the continent directly through vaccine manufacturers. This was in addition to the 600-million doses expected from the Covax initiative. But this is short of what is required for the 1.3 billion Africans.
“Through its participation in these continental and global initiatives, SA continues to promote the need for universal, fair and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines,” he said. “We all must act together in combating coronavirus, because it affects all of us equally, and therefore our remedies — our actions to combat it — must also be equal,” he said according to a report in the South African daily, Business Day.
