UN Welcomes Pledge Made By G7 to Provide 870 Mil COVID-19 Vaccine Doses to Developing Nations

(ENA)A senior UN official welcomed on Sunday, the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized nations’ commitment to immediately share at least 870 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, supporting global access and helping to end the acute phase of the pandemic.

“Equitable access to COVID  vaccines represents the clearest pathway out of this pandemic for all of us children included, and commitments announced by G7 members are an important step in this direction”, the Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Henrietta Fore, said in a statement.

Building on the momentum of the G20 Global Health Summit and the Gavi COVAX AMC summit, in a landmark agreement at the G7 summit – underway in Cornwall, United Kingdom  the global leaders made the pledge, with the aim of delivering at least half by the end of 2021

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres  had previously said that despite “unequal and very unfair” access to inoculations, “it is in the interest of everybody that everybody gets vaccinated sooner rather than later”.

The G-7 leaders also reaffirmed their support for the UN-led equitable vaccine distribution initiative COVAX , calling it “the primary route for providing vaccines to the poorest countries”.

The COVAX  alliance, meanwhile, welcomed the G7’s commitment, including their continued support for exporting in significant proportions and for promoting voluntary licensing and not-for-profit global production.

The partners look forward to “seeing doses flowing to countries” as soon as possible.

COVAX will work with the G7 and other countries that have stepped up to share doses as rapidly and equitably as possible to help address short-term supply constraints currently impacting the global response to COVID-19 and minimize the prospect of future deadly variants.

The G7 is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, UK and United States.

Source: Ethiopia News Agency