Six leaders of Latin American and Caribbean countries asked the international community on Monday equitable access to vaccines against Covid-19, and they demanded that the nations that have more doses, that they can share them.
“We make a vehement appeal to those countries that have excess doses or that have already vaccinated their population at risk, to implement measures so that these surpluses are distributed equitably and immediately, ”says the statement released by the president of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado.
They also sign the order Alberto Fernández, president of Argentina; Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico; Andrew Michael Holness, Prime Minister of Jamaica; Luis Alberto Arce Catacora, President of Bolivia; Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, President of Ecuador, and Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, President of Uruguay.
According to the rulers, of the 1,300 million doses of vaccines that have been administered globally, more than half were used in five countries that account for 50% of global GDP.
“In total, low-income countries have received only 0.3% of the world’s doses”They denounced.
The six leaders join a similar request made by the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres.
“No one will be safe until we are all safe. Confronting and recovering from the pandemic will only be possible when vaccines reach at-risk populations around the world “, they stated in the letter, signed together.
“The new and more dangerous variants of the Covid-19 virus show that the Isolated vaccination by country is an ineffective strategy to end the acute stage of the pandemic ”, they added.
Five countries in Latin America are among the top 10 in the world with the most cases of the disease detected per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days: Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Colombia.
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