UK urges Sec Council to push for pause in wars

Britain has circulated a draft decision to the UN Security Council demanding that each one opponents instantly institute a “sustained humanitarian pause” to allow folks in battle areas to be vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19.
The proposed decision reiterates the council’s demand final July 1 for “a general and immediate cessation of hostilities” in main conflicts from Syria and Yemen to Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan and Somalia, an attraction first made by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on March 23, 2020, to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
The draft, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, “emphasizes the need for solidarity, equity, and efficacy and invites donation of vaccine doses from developed economies to low- and middle-income countries and other countries in need, including through the COVAX Facility,” an bold World Health Organization undertaking to purchase and ship coronavirus vaccines for the world’s poorest folks.

The British draft stresses that “equitable access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines, certified as safe and efficacious, is essential to end the pandemic.”
It would acknowledge “the role of extensive immunization against COVID-19 as a global public good for health in preventing, containing, and stopping transmission, in order to bring the pandemic to an end.”
The draft follows up on British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s attraction to the 15-member Security Council on Wednesday to undertake a decision calling for native cease-fires in battle zones to permit the supply of COVID-19 vaccines.