Guterres requires a covid vaccine “available and affordable” for all

“It is imperative that the covid vaccine be available to everyone and affordable for everyone. Because no one will be safe (from the virus) until we are all safe,” the UN Secretary-General said.

The secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, asked this Tuesday 27-O that the future vaccine against covid-19 be “available” to all and “within everyone’s reach”.

In a videoconference with the leaders of the Nordic Council – which includes Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland – Guterres advocated a “new and effective multilateralism” that serves to address global challenges; from global warming to the current pandemic.

“It is imperative that the covid vaccine be available to everyone and affordable for everyone. Because no one will be safe (from the virus) until we are all safe,” Guterres said in his speech.

This vaccine should be considered a “global public good,” said the UN Secretary-General on the cure for the coronavirus, which has already infected 43.7 million people worldwide and killed 1.16 million.

Guterres recalled that the current situation “is not only a health crisis”, but also an economic debacle that puts “development at risk”.

The recovery, he added, should not “replicate the past” but build “in a sustainable and inclusive way” and “address the weaknesses” that the pandemic has shown around the world.

In his view, we should not move towards “global governance”, but towards “true global governance” with strong institutions, because the current ones are “weak enough”, with “the ability to guarantee minimum standards to meet global challenges”.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lövfen also supported ensuring the universal distribution of the future coronavirus vaccine and pledged to contribute to multilateral efforts.

In this sense, the Prime Minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, has called for “equal access and equal distribution”, as well as a “global response” to the health and economic crisis, because “our destiny is interconnected”.

In defense of the multilateral system, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that “we need the UN more than ever” and her Norwegian counterpart, Erna Solberg, stressed that the pandemic shows the “need” for “international collaboration”.