President of the Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has lashed out at leaders of European countries over what he says is the latter’s continuous hoarding of Covid-19 vaccines.
According to him, the practice would not augur well for the world at large in its bid to defeat the onslaught of the pandemic.
President Akufo-Addo, addressing the European Parliament in France on Tuesday, December 14, 2021, emphasized the need for everyone to be vaccinated to be safe for the rest of the world.
The Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) consequently urged the EU leaders to make vaccines available to other countries.
“The unsavoury politics of vaccine nationalism we are witnessing could, however, potentially derail global efforts made at containing the pandemic. To date, less than 10% of Africa has been vaccinated in comparison to the EU, for example, which as of August, has vaccinated 70% of its population.
“The phenomenon of hoarding vaccines will worsen even further as countries begin to administer booster shots in response to the threats posed by the Omicron variant of the virus. I am a firm believer in the statement that no one is safe until everyone is safe,” he stressed.
President Akufo-Addo, in recent times, has criticized European countries for placing several African countries, including Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa and Botswana, on a red list following cases of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 reported in these countries.
The president maintains that such measures introduced should not be used as a tool for immigration control.
“We repeated our firm opposition to all attempts to single out African countries for the imposition of travel bans, as instruments of immigration control, when we are told, for example, that the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which was recently sequenced and reported by South African scientists, was discovered much earlier in the Netherlands,” he said.
Meanwhile, the UK has removed 11 countries, including Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, and Lesotho, from its red list.
The rest are Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Source: Ghanaweb
