Cyril Ramaphosa to address White House’s global Covid-19 summit
According to the White House, the meeting is about expanding and enhancing shared efforts to defeat Covid-19, building out from previous gatherings of world leaders and ministers.
Pretoria – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was on Wednesday scheduled to address a virtual global Covid-19 summit, at the invitation of United States President Joe Biden.
The theme of the summit is “Ending the Pandemic and Building Better Health Security to Prepare for the Next”.
“The summit envisages agreement by leaders on four targets which will be announced by President Biden and which aim to create lasting solutions to combating Covid-19 and future pandemics,” said acting Presidency spokesperson Tyrone Seale.
“President Ramaphosa has been central in the global leadership response to the pandemic over and above being the Covid-19 Champion for the African Union and the continent.”
A statement from White House press secretary Jen Psaki last week highlighted that the high-level summit was taking place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
“This meeting is about expanding and enhancing our shared efforts to defeat Covid-19, building out from previous gatherings of world leaders and ministers in fora like the G7, G20, and Act Accelerator to rally civil society, NGOs, philanthropists, and industry along with world leaders and align on a common vision for defeating Covid-19 together,” said Psaki.
Participants have been requested to commit to a higher level of ambition across four themes:
· Vaccinate the world by enhancing equitable access to vaccines and getting shots in arms.
· Save lives now by solving the oxygen crisis, and making tests, therapeutics and PPE [personal protective equipment] more available.
· Build back better by establishing a sustainable health security financing mechanism, and global leadership for emerging threats.
· Calling the world to account by aligning around targets, tracking progress, and supporting one another “in fulfilling our commitments”.
In South Africa, another 160 people died as a result of Covid-19 on Tuesday, while over 2,197 more people tested positive for the coronavirus, the department of health said.
This comes as 175 more people have been admitted to hospitals in the public and private sector, taking the number of coronavirus patients in the country to 8 150 around the country.
More than 2.8 million people have tested positive for the virus in South Africa to date.
National Institute for Communicable Diseases spokesperson Sinenhlanhla Jimoh said the current surge in infections was seeing “a sustained downward trend”.
IOL
