LONDON | The UK will call on the UN Security Council on Wednesday to push for temporary ceasefires in conflict zones to vaccinate against the coronavirus there, assuring that it is a “duty moral”.
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Foreign Minister Dominic Raab, whose country takes over the presidency of the Council in February, said his draft resolution would also demand “equitable access” worldwide to COVID-19 vaccines.
“Global immunization coverage is essential to defeat the coronavirus,” Raab said in a statement, stressing the need for temporary ceasefires to help immunize more than 160 million people at risk in conflict zones, such as Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.
“We have a moral duty to act and a strategic need to unite to defeat this virus,” he pleaded.
UK has committed £ 548million (€ 630million) to COVAX’s global COVID-19 immunization access system and will build on the Security Council meeting, as well as the virtual summit of the G7 on Friday, which he also chairs, to lobby for more donations.
British Ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, acknowledged that the implementation of the Security Council resolution would be a “huge political, logistical and financial challenge”.
Several countries, including China and Russia, members of the Security Council, as well as some Gulf countries, have already launched initiatives in the field of “vaccine diplomacy”, either by enhancing their own production capacity or by facilitating access to vaccine doses.
But Barbara Woodward stressed the need for global coordination: “Of course it is the right thing to do, but it is also in the interest of all countries. No one is safe until we are all safe, ”she told reporters.
The UK launched a mass vaccination program in December. More than 15 million people have already been vaccinated, and the government aims to inject at least a first dose of the vaccine into all adults by September.
But the government believes it is too early to consider giving excess doses to other countries, stressing that booster injections may be needed against the variants.