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Rich nations have three times the stockpiles of coronavirus vaccine they need for their own populations and should give the surplus to Latin America, the region most affected by the pandemic and where the death toll is “catastrophic.” , said a senior official.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Rebeca Grynspan, who heads the Ibero-American General Secretariat that brings together Spain, Portugal and Latin America, said other countries should follow Spain’s example. The Prime Minister of the country, Pedro Sánchez, has promised to give surplus vaccines to Latin America through the Covax facilities, run by the WHO, once half of the Spanish population has been vaccinated . As of July 8, 57.5% had received a first dose, according to Madrid.
“It’s very important to follow the Spanish example because that would start giving us the vaccines from the second half of this year,” Grynspan said. If Spain’s example is not followed, “suffering will be prolonged and cost many lives.”
Existing promises to donate vaccines against the G7 would be too late, he warned.
With eight percent of the world’s population, Latin America has suffered nearly a third of the world’s pandemic deaths, as well as the worst recession in 120 years.
Vaccination rates are low due to the difficulty of securing supplies: some countries have inoculated less than 10% of their population. Officials complain about US and European governments hoarding stocks. The region’s weak health systems, high levels of poverty and large urban populations have been blamed for the high rates of Covid-19.
The United States has announced plans to give 80m of surplus doses worldwide and pledged to give 500m doses of BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine to 92 lower-income countries by mid-2022. But that definition only includes a handful of nations in Latin America and the allocation will be decided by Washington. Grynspan said Covax should allocate all vaccines given. (…)
Despite the impact of the pandemic, limited access to debt and unstable public finances have restricted the amount Latin American countries can spend to mitigate rising poverty and unemployment.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America earlier this year said the region’s public debt would increase from 68.9% to 79.3% of GDP between 2019 and 2020, which will make Latin America and the Caribbean in the most indebted territories of the developing world.
The IMF is close to agreeing a $ 650 billion new special drawing rights, the largest allocation of its kind in its history, in response to the pandemic. But, under current rules, it would be distributed in proportion to existing quotas, meaning that most of the money would go to rich countries.
There have been discussions about redirecting funds to the poorest nations under an existing mechanism, but this would exclude middle-income countries, the category that covers most of Latin America.
Latin America will receive only $ 68 billion from the new issue, according to Grynspan: “It is not enough to get out of the problem we are in. [with Covid-19] and even less so if the problem continues “.
Grynspan, an economist who served as Costa Rica’s vice president, said Latin American nations wanted to see a new IMF facility to redirect leftover resources from rich countries to middle-income countries.
“If the economic crisis [in Latin America] it gets deeper. . . we will see much more protest. . . in the streets, ”he added. “Latin America must emerge from this crisis with a new social contract where basic public services and social protection are adequately funded and must be universal.”
Grynspan will leave the secretariat next month after seven years to become the first female secretary general of the United National Conference on Trade and Development. The secretariat has not yet appointed a successor.
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