UN official urges acceleration in coronavirus vaccinations
Associated PressUNITED NATIONS — The U.N. official spearheading global vaccination efforts against the coronavirus said Monday the number of countries where 10% or less of the population has been vaccinated dropped from 34 to 18 since January and called for accelerated progress to end the pandemic. Assistant Secretary-General Ted Chaiban told the U.N. Security Council that with over 6 million lives lost to COVID-19 and just over 1 million new coronavirus infections reported to the World Health Organization in the last 24 hours, it is urgent to increase vaccinations in countries where it wasn’t possible to boost rates in 2021. Chaiban told the council he was speaking by video link from Congo where this week the U.N. team will be meeting with government officials and key partners “to better address the urgent needs and bottlenecks to expanding vaccination coverage across this country of nearly 100 million people.” Dr. Esperanza Martinez, a senior adviser to the director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said vaccinations and other health-related activities “are incredibly difficult to carry out” in conflict-affected areas. “Some of these vaccines were wasted because they arrived with too short expiry date, others because the receiving country’s health systems were not ready to distribute them.” To address the significant vaccine equity gap, the U.N’s Chaiban urged the council to continue supporting two resolutions it adopted calling for cease-fires and increased global cooperation to facilitate access for vaccinations in major conflict areas. Chaiban also urged council members to advocate for and help guarantee unhindered humanitarian access to deliver vaccine supplies and administer doses and to invest in primary health care “as a key element of future pandemic preparedness.”