“INEQUALITY IN ACCESS TO VACCINES,” MEXICO TO COMPLAIN AT UN

Wed 17 February 2021:

The way coronavirus vaccines are being rolled out worldwide, Mexico isn’t happy, saying the process favors richer countries while leaving poorer countries behind.

At the United Nations Security Council meeting this week, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday.

“The countries that produce them have very high vaccination rates and Latin America and the Caribbean have much lower (rates),” he said.

Mexico, which holds a rotating seat on the council, will voice the concerns of Latin America about “inequality in access to vaccines,” Ebrard said.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to debate the problem of global coronavirus vaccine equity on Wednesday at the initiative of Britain.

Mexico has struggled with its vaccine rollout, only managing to administer about 750,000 vaccine doses so far, despite having signed purchase agreements for the eventual delivery of more than 230 million doses of various Covid-19 vaccines.

With supplies scarce, the Mexican government’s concern over whether some countries are hoarding vaccines is shared by many worldwide.

Wealthier countries like the United States, Israel, China and the United Kingdom are at or near the top of the list in number of vaccines administered so far, while many poorer countries have yet to offer a single dose.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters that his country has to import doses from Europe even though they are also produced in the United States, which keeps vaccines made there for itself.

He said Mexico wanted to ensure “there is no hoarding of vaccines, that there is a principle of equality so that all countries have the possibility of vaccinating their residents.”

Last month, Mexico accepted a reduction in the delivery rate of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in response to a plea from the World Health Organization to share doses with poorer nations.

Mexico has the world’s third-highest COVID-19 death toll, at more than 174,000.

It began mass vaccination on Dec. 24, starting with health workers, but like many countries is constrained by limited supplies.

“Even as vaccines bring hope to some, they become another brick in the wall of inequality between the world’s haves and have-nots,” said World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in January.

“Even as they speak the language of equitable access, some countries and companies continue to prioritize bilateral deals…driving up prices and attempting to jump to the front of the queue. This is wrong,” he said.

Mexico’s complaint at Wednesday’s UN Security Council meeting will focus on Latin America and the Caribbean, a poor part of the world particularly devastated by the pandemic.

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