Ramaphosa Tells Rich Countries To Cough Up Cash To Help Fight Covid-19
- President Cyril Ramaphosa has met with world leaders and urged them to honour their financial commitments to help fight Covid-19
- He also called on a temporary waiver on the intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines in order to speed up production and distribution
- A faster global vaccine rollout would reduce the chance of dangerous new mutations of the virus from developing and slow down the spread
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President Cyril Ramaphosa met with leaders of the G7 and reminded them of their commitments to provide financial support to countries to help fight Covid-19.
Rich countries can afford to help fund the development of tools to fight the virus. If the rich countries honoured their promises, the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator will have two-thirds of its funding. Ramaphosa said that if the G20 paid their share then 90% of ACT's funding would be secure.
Source: Twitter
Vaccine intellectual property rights
The South African president is also fighting to have the Covid-19 vaccine intellectual property rights temporarily waived according to eNCA.
News24 reported that this would speed up the production of vaccines and increase the rate of vaccinations throughout the world. In turn, this would reduce the chance of new mutations of the virus and reduce the overall spread.
"I welcome the support of US President @JoeBiden for a #TRIPSwaiver to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are urging leaders at the #G7 Summit to support a time-bound and limited waiver to expand the global supply of COVID-19 vaccines & medicines."
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Third wave of Covid-19 infections
Reports have revealed that health experts recently warned that the people of South Africa could face further lockdown restrictions that may be stricter as the country officially enters into a third wave of Covid-19 infections.
Senior members of the Ministerial Advisory Commitee (MAC) told a well-known media publication that a possible move to an adjusted level 3 lockdown may be considered. The shortage of hospital beds in some provinces is a topic of major concern.
Of similar concern is a tweet shared by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases where it explained that the country had 'technically' entered the third wave.
Gauteng under pressure
The third wave of Covid-19 is wreaking havoc in Gauteng and the government is mulling over possible changes to the restrictions.
Ministerial Advisory Committee head Salim Abdool Karim said that tough restrictions are on the cards.
Besides most of the country's new infections being reported in the province, the hospitals are also struggling to keep up.
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Source: Briefly News
