UN secretary general calls on wealthy nations to ensure vaccines are distributed fairly across the globe

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called on the international community to help ensure that everybody in the world is vaccinated as soon as possible.

Speaking at a virtual UN Security Council Wednesday, Guterres said although the vaccine is generating hope, "progress on vaccinations has been wildly uneven and unfair."

Guterres said: "Just ten countries have administered 75% of all Covid-19 vaccines. Meanwhile, more than 130 countries have not received a single dose."

He called for the equitable distribution of vaccines saying it is the "biggest moral test before the global community," and he warned that if affluent nations fail to quickly vaccinate people in all countries the pandemic will be prolonged: "If the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire in the Global South, it will mutate again and again. New variants could become more transmissible, more deadly, and, potentially, threaten the effectiveness of current vaccines and diagnostics. This can prolong the pandemic significantly, enabling the virus to come back to plague the Global North."

Guterres said, "the world urgently needs a Global Vaccination Plan to bring together all those with the required power, scientific expertise and production, and financial capacities."

He concluded by saying the world can defeat coronavirus if all nations work together to "ensure sufficient, supply, fair distribution and vaccine confidence."