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 Italy, which holds the G20 presidency this year, said after the
gathering that the "Pact of Rome," where the meeting was held on
Sunday and Monday, included a political agreement to increase
support for poor nations and send them more vaccines.
"The level of (vaccine) inequality is too high and is not
sustainable," Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza told
reporters.
"If we leave part of the world without vaccines we risk new variants
which will hurt all of us...Our message is very clear: no one must
be left behind in the vaccination campaign."
Vaccines are being shipped to poor countries through the
international COVAX facility, backed by the World Health
Organization and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
However, richer nations have come under fire for allegedly
stockpiling COVID-19 jabs as many underdeveloped countries with low
inoculation rates and rising infections struggle to get supplies.
"The strongest countries...are committed to investing significant
resources and sending vaccines to the most fragile...We should
strengthen this system bilaterally and through international
platforms starting from COVAX," Speranza said.
However, asked whether the G20 had made any new concrete financial
commitments, he warned such pledges risked being a "straitjacket,"
and the important thing was a "political goal" of global
vaccination.
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 "We want to take the vaccine to
the whole world and we'll make the investments
necessary. Will they be enough? Will more be
needed? The countries of the world are making a
commitment in this direction," he said.
A 11-page declaration released after the meeting made no new
financial pledges, but Speranza said these may be delivered at a
joint meeting of G20 health and finance ministers in October.
That will be "a decisive occasion to find the resources to finance
the instruments we have put on the table", he said.
A little over 230 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered
to 139 countries under COVAX, GAVI data shows, against a target to
secure 2 billion doses for lower-income countries by the end of
2021.
Speranza stressed that poor countries must also be helped to produce
vaccines at home. "Transferring doses is not enough. We have to make
other areas of the world capable of producing, sharing methodologies
and procedures," he said.
(Editing by Gavin Jones and Mark Heinrich)
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