Politics

Ramaphosa Wants Rich Countries to Donate Vaccines to Needy Nations

Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 10:24 AM by Reeshni Chetty

- President Cyril Ramaphosa has joined calls by others for rich countries to donate 5% of their vaccines

- Ramaphosa spoke at the launch of the Global Citizen's five-point plan where he made note of countries in Africa

- The Presidents reiterated that of the EU President Commission, French President and CEO of Global Citizen

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President Cyril Ramaphosa has joined the call for rich countries to donate 5% of their vaccines to poor countries. Ramaphosa reiterated the calls made by the President of the European Union (EU) Commission as well as the French President and CEO of Global Citizen.

The president was addressing the launch of the Global Citizen's five-point plan on Tuesday, 22 February. He made note of countries in Africa in need of vaccine donations.

Ramaphosa believes that no person, region or country should be left behind in terms of the vaccination programmes spread out across the globe.

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Ramaphosa, joins, rich countries 5% of vaccines donate, poor countries — President Cyril Ramaphosa has reiterated calls for richer countries to donate 5% of their vaccines to poor countries. Image: Lintao Zhang and Alet Pretorius/Gallo Images
Source: Getty Images

"We continue to call on world leaders to support the COVAX facility to ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccine for all countries and in this regard, I applaud and support what Presidents Macron and Ursula Von Der Leyen have called for that rich countries should donate 5% fo their vaccines to needy countries particularly on our continent Africa," said Ramaphosa.

SABC News reported that the EU had contributed €500 million (over R8 billion) to the World Health Organisation (WHO) backed COVAX programmed which supplies Covid-19 jabs to emerging economies.

A report by News24 stated that the EU and WHO both wish to create momentum for global Covid-19 pandemic recovery.

Briefly.co.za took to Twitter to see what discussions came to light after the news broke. Read some of the tweets below:

@matteodupreez said:

"Well, that means he is saying they shouldn’t give us, because we are not needy, at all!"

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@stormhinks wrote:

"We aren’t a needy nation, I agree for the rich countries to donate to needy countries, not to the corrupt ones. The countries that actually need it and aren’t going to squander it."

@MnuMahlalela tweeted:

"He should also call for rich politicians to donate 5% of their salary to the needy."

@ardugpc added:

"If the needy nations can also show by means of government size and salaries how needy they really are."

@Martiwe1 responded to the news with:

"If South Africa is included as a "needy" Nation, it is only "needy" because of governments failures. But, the needy will vote them in again and support the wholesale destruction of the economy. Very sad."

@TiredEyesMom added in response to the news:

"Because we are spending our money on renaming cities nobody even knows about."

Earlier, Briefly.co.za reported that the private sector is set to receive 33% of the Covid-19 vaccine. The portion of vaccine doses will be administered to the private sector over the next 14 days.