Members of Global Justice Macclesfield have met to highlight the inequalities in global distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The current geographic discrepancies of the coronavirus jab is a situation that the Director General Dr Tedros Adhranom Ghebreyesus of the WHO described as 'a catastrophic moral failure' and others are naming a 'vaccine apartheid'.

Global Justice Macclesfield are calling for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines across the globe.

"We applaud the efforts of the scientists who have collaborated and shared information and worked tirelessly to develop effective vaccines at unprecedented speed and those governments and public and private organisations that have funded the work, said Global Justice Macclesfield.

"We appreciate the protection that this affords the UK population following the tragic death of so many of our fellow citizens.

"We also recognise the complexities of rolling out vaccines in many parts of the world where populations may not enjoy adequate health care facilities or may be difficult to reach.

"However the contrast of around 70% of adults fully vaccinated in richer countries compared to only 1% of adults in low and middle income countries is stark, and means that millions of people will continue to die due to lack of access to the vaccine."

The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, has only 1% of its population fully vaccinated, and India only 7%.

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This is in spite of the latter having the biggest vaccine manufacturing capacity in the world.

Global Justice Now highlights the contrast between the UK with 82.3 million doses of COVID vaccines (for a population of 68 million) compared to 59.1 million doses so far for the whole of Africa.

With a hemisphere population of 1340 million and their at the current rate of vaccination it will take until 2024 for the Global South to have protection from COVID.

This reflects a failure on the part of the global community to secure mechanisms to distribute the vaccines globally at pace as they became available.

As Dr Ghebreyesus said "The price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world's poorest countries."

"We welcome the announcement last month by the UK Government of the dispatch of a first batch of 9 million vaccines to poorer countries," added Global Justice Macclesfield.

"But this is well overdue and amounts to a tiny fraction of the number of doses needed. Many countries also need assistance to get structures in place in order to utilise the doses effectively.

"We call upon Governments, members of the World Trade Organisation and pharmaceutical companies to work together to share resources, vaccines, treatments and technical know how across borders so that the whole world can get vaccinated at an affordable cost.

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Global Justice Macclesfield is a committed people who meet regularly in town to raise awareness of the root causes of global poverty and injustice. They are part of Global Justice Now, who mobilise people locally for change and act in solidarity with those fighting injustice around the world, particularly in the global south.

You can contact them via [email protected]. Macclesfield newcomers are always welcome.

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