As G20 leaders met in Rome, they agreed to provide COVID-19 vaccines to poorer nations across the world. According a Gulf News editorial on Monday, the move if followed through as a matter of urgency will help in strengthening the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the editorial, the UAE newspaper underlined that more than 70 percent of people across the world are yet receive the first dose of Coronavirus vaccines. It will not only ensure that the COVID-19 virus will continue to disrupt normal activities globally, but also amplified the likelihood of the development of more mutant strains. The potential risk of such strains will hamper the ongoing vaccination programmes across the world as well as recovery efforts, the editorial highlighted.

The newspaper noted that vaccine inequality is taking place at the expense of poorer nations with large and economically deprived populations. The editorial regarded vaccine inequality, performed by countries which have money and means to procure billions of vaccine doses, an act of geopolitical immorality that has evolved since the development of vaccines against COVID-19 became widely available.

For several months now, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other humanitarian and governmental agencies have been urging to promote wider and more equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines with the aim of curbing the spread of the virus, the paper added. A number of countries such as the UAE have stepped up efforts to sponsor and donate tens of millions of doses to support the needs of poorer and impoverished countries.

The editorial further underlined the significance of the first in-person meeting of G20 leaders Rome in two years to building immunity against COVID-19 through enhanced vaccination efforts.

"Those leaders did endorse a call to vaccinate 70 percent of the world’s population against COVID-19 over the next nine months. It is an ambitious target but one that can be reached. More importantly than ‘can’ is the realization that the target ‘must’ be reached. This pandemic has shown us just how interconnected we are, and that any disruption of those connections undermines our ability to trade, hurting supply chains globally," the editorial said.

The UAE-based English daily further hailed the UAE's efforts in leading the way to fight COVID-19 with its mass roll-out of vaccines and ensuring the provision of crucial vaccines to poor nations. In conclusion, Gulf News called on other nations to follow suit, expressing hope towards G20 showing the way to combat the global pandemic and vaccine inequality.

"Other nations ought to follow suit, and the move by the G20 hopefully shows that both the days of this global pandemic and the immorality of vaccine inequality might be numbered. But only if they do follow through," the newspaper concluded.,

WAM