French President Emmanuel Macron has urged stepped-up international efforts to get vaccines to poor countries, saying China and Russia should be involved more.
While France’s own vaccination program has suffered from delivery delays and bureaucratic troubles, Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in an interview published Sunday that “African countries are asking us, justifiably, about their access to vaccines.”
Macron met with global pharmaceutical CEOs and vaccine experts in recent days to discuss programs to fight vaccine inequality, to help end the pandemic and revive economies faster.
Among those programs is the UN-backed COVAX, which has suffered a slow start because of funding shortages and lack of commitment from some major world powers.
“We must speed up this effort further because each week counts,” Macron was quoted as saying. He also said vaccines made in China and Russia should be “integrated into this great multilateral effort against the pandemic.”
