South Africa\u2019s President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chad\u2019s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and Uganda\u2019s President Yoweri Museveni are set to address the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Access to COVID-19 vaccines has been one of the major topics of the annual meeting in New York and is likely to be one of the most discussed again Thursday as leaders from African nations make up a large portion of the day\u2019s list of speakers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While some countries such as the United States have had vaccine doses widely available to their populations for months, other countries have struggled to access COVID-19 vaccine supplies.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 4% of the population is fully vaccinated.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa was among a group of leaders who participated in a virtual summit Wednesday convened by U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss boosting efforts to vaccinate people all over the world. Biden announced the United States was buying another 500 million doses of Pfizer\u2019s COVID-19 vaccine to distribute to other countries.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOf the around 6 billion vaccine doses administered worldwide, only 2% of these have been administered in Africa, a continent of more than 1.2 billion people,\u201d Ramaphosa said. \u201cThis is unjust and immoral.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other speakers Thursday include Iraq\u2019s President Barham Salih, Cuba\u2019s President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel Berm\u00fadez, El Salvador\u2019s President Nayib Bukele and Italy\u2019s Prime Minister Mario Draghi.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The coronavirus pandemic has prompted a number of world leaders to pre-record their remarks instead of traveling to New York to speak in person. About half of Thursday\u2019s speeches were recorded in advance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Source: Voice of America<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa\u2019s President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chad\u2019s President Mahamat Idriss Deby and Uganda\u2019s President Yoweri Museveni are set to address the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.Access to COVID-19 vaccines has been one of the major topics of the annual me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n