UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during a press conference on Wednesday said that he will take a Covid-19 vaccine publicly when it becomes available to him, "I, of course, intend to receive the vaccine when it becomes available for me in whatever situation that will be justified for that. And obviously, I would not doubt doing it publicly."
Encouraging everybody to get vaccinated, Antonio said, "I encourage everybody, as access to the vaccine (becomes available), to be vaccinated, because it is a service not only that we provide to ourselves.”
"Each one of us being vaccinated provides a service to the whole community because we are no longer spreading, there is no risk of spreading the disease," the UN chief told reporters.
The UN chief added that vaccination for him is a moral obligation about all of us.
Guterres stated that he calls for a Covid vaccine to be a global public good available and to be made available to everyone, everywhere, and particularly, available in Africa.
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He also repeated his appeal for a bold and coordinated international approach on debt relief efforts for African countries, including debt cancellation, where appropriate, as well as the meaningful increase in the financial support to African countries to provide the necessary liquidity and to finance the recovery.
The UN chief further added that most African countries are financially weak to respond to a crisis like Covid-19, due in part to declining demand and prices of their commodity exports.