'Promises aren't translating': Harry and Meghan urge G20 leaders to address COVID-19 vaccine inequity

In an open letter, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have urged the global leaders to eliminate the "devastating" coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine inequity and also end the pandemic once and for all. Harry and Meghan also stated that "promises aren't translating" into vaccines reaching the people that need them.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have partnered with Tedros Adhanom, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) to raise the issue tothe leaders at the G20 Summit that how low-income countries are suffering due to a lack of access to COVID-19 vaccines.

ALSO READ | Ed Sheeran sticks with a familiar formula on ‘=’

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The letter, which is published on the official site of the WHO read: "Of the almost 7 billion doses that have been administered globally, just 3 percent of people in low-income countries have had a jab so far. Where are the rest?"

"COVAX, the initiative designed to help achieve fair global access to COVID vaccines, has been promised 1.3 billion doses to be donated for the low-income countries it supports, yet it has been able to ship only 150 million - 11.5 percent – to date. Where are the rest?" the letter read.

The letter also stressedthat millions of surplus vaccines are getting wasted once they expire, however, every discarded dose of a COVID-19 vaccine is a matter of outrage as they could have been donated. The letter noted that each dose of vaccine represents a real person, who could have been protected.

ALSO READ | American Music Awards 2021: BTS, Ariana Grande nominated for Artist of the Year; read for details

Leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies endorsed on Saturday a global minimum tax aimed at stopping big business from hiding profits in tax havens, and also agreed to get more Covid vaccines to poorer nations.

Attending their first in-person summit in two years, G20 leaders broadly backed calls to extend debt relief for impoverished countries and pledged to vaccinate 70 per cent of the world's population against COVID-19 by mid-2022.

"There are many crises that you – the stewards of our planet – must grapple with this weekend: the climate emergency, the state of our global economy, a recommitment to multilateralism. Yet, in many ways, making headway on these priorities depends on whether we can beat this pandemic," the letter included.

"Cooperation of historic proportion is the only solution. Lives literally depend on it," Harry and Meghan concluded in the letter.