The United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are urging that governments and others unite in developing a “people’s vaccine” to protect everyone against the coronavirus.
Their appeal came ahead of a vaccine summit in London organized by the Global Vaccine Alliance that is seeking to mobilize billions of dollars of funding for a COVID-19 vaccine.
The “people’s vaccine” should protect the affluent, the poor, the old and young, said a statement by the UN and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. That is a “moral imperative that brings us all together in our shared humanity,” it said. It said the pandemic is also raising risks of other diseases as it disrupts childhood immunization programs, leaving at least 80 million children under the age of one at risk of diseases like measles, diphtheria and polio.