Kemi Osukoya

February 8, 2021

President of Rwanda Paul Kagame warned the international community that covid-19 vaccines protectionism—unequal global access and distributions of covid-19 vaccines that leaves developing countries behind in the vaccine queue is shortsighted.

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President Kagame made the warning in a Op-Ed piece he published on Monday in The Guardian, a British newspaper.

In the piece, he urged the developed nations in Europe and North America to rally in support for expedient access and distributions of affordable covid-19 vaccines to the developing countries, underscoring the urgency of the situation.

“Delaying access to vaccines for citizens of developing countries is ultimately many times more costly. The pandemic will rage on, crippling the global economy. New mutations may continue to emerge at a more rapid pace. The world risks reversing decades of human development gains and eclipsing the 2030 sustainable development goals,” he wrote.

“In this context, the billions of dollars it would cost to distribute vaccines across the developing world is not particularly high, given the return on the investment. Doing so would unlock global commerce, which would benefit all trading nations during the long road to economic recovery that lies ahead of us. We need global value chains to be fully operational again and to include everyone.”

Read the full Op-Ed here