Staff Reporter
THE phenomenon known as ‘Vaccine Apartheid’ is hampering the effort of authorities globally to beat the Covid-19 pandemic.
President Hage Geingob, while addressing other heads of state at the global Covid-19 summit on the sidelines of the 76th United Nations General Assembly in New York, said that it is not in anyone’s interest that certain countries are denied access to vaccines while others have an abundance of the antigens.
The global Covid-19 summit, under the theme ‘Ending the pandemic and building back better,’ was convened by the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, to discuss global health security.
“I wish to expresses appreciation to the Government of the United States of America for having organised and invited us to this important Covid- 19 summit. Namibia is fully committed to the goals of ending the pandemic and building a stronger global health security architecture in 2022,” Dr Geingob told participants of the summit.
He said to reach the goal, Namibia has increased Human Resources for health, expanded and developed infrastructure to provide access to a reliable oxygen supply, strengthened health information systems, provided additional funding for improved health capacity, and increased commodities and supplies to provide better health services.
Geingob said that in addition to taking all the necessary steps, Namibia has set itself a target of vaccinating 70% of the country’s population by 2022.
“While committing to saving lives now, Namibia wishes to state that savings lives can only be successful once we eliminate Vaccine Apartheid. It is not in anyone’s interest that in certain countries people are receiving their first doses, while in others, people are receiving booster shots. Let us not forget that no one is safe until all of us are safe,” he said.
While addressing President Biden, Geingob said that he knows him as someone who was a staunch partner in Namibia’s fight against Apartheid.
“We have the utmost confidence that once again, you will partner with us to ensure that indeed, all of us, whether big or small, whether old or young, whether poor or wealthy, are safe from Covid-19,” Geingob concluded.
