UN chief urges global coronavirus vaccination plan

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged a coronavirus vaccination plan Wednesday, warning "we are only safe if everyone is safe."

"The world urgently needs a Global Vaccination Plan to bring together all those with the required power, scientific expertise and production and financial capacities," Guterres told a virtual meeting of the UN Security Council on coronavirus vaccinations.

Noting that the rollout progress for vaccines "has been wildly uneven and unfair," he said: "Just 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all COVID-19 vaccines. Meanwhile, more than 130 countries have not received a single dose."

"Those affected by conflict and insecurity are at particular risk of being left behind," he said. "When a pandemic strikes, we are only safe if everyone is safe."

The UN chief said that G20 economies are in the best position to establish an emergency task force to prepare such a global vaccination plan and coordinate implementation which the UN will support fully.

"If the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire in the Global South, or parts of it, it will mutate again and again. New variants could become more transmissible, more deadly and, potentially, threaten the effectiveness of current vaccines and diagnostics," Guterres said. "This can prolong the pandemic significantly, enabling the virus to come back to plague the Global North."

"It will also delay the world economic recovery," he said.

Reminding that the UN already produces and delivers vaccines to low- and middle-income countries by its COVAX facility, Guterres underlined that it "requires to be fully funded."

The global case count nears 110 million and deaths are close to 2.5 million, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University.