The UK should immediately donate its coronavirus vaccines to poor countries. This demand was made by the new head of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who became the first African in this post, her words are quoted by the BBC TV channel.
“I don’t think we should wait until the surplus appears and the moment when all [Britons] get the vaccine,” Okonjo-Iweala said. Such a tactic will serve the interests of both poor and rich countries, she said.
The head of the WTO said that the world economy risks losing $ 9 trillion if by the middle of the year rich countries vaccinate half of their population, and poor countries do not vaccinate theirs. “Half of these losses will be borne by the rich countries,” she said.
Earlier it became known that rich states ordered more than one billion doses of coronavirus vaccine than is necessary to vaccinate all residents of these countries. At the same time, in January, UN Secretary General António Guterres accused the rich countries of “vaccine nationalism.” According to him, in the struggle to purchase vaccines, such states ignored the needs of less developed countries.