Hollywood actress Charlize Theron is one of the eminent personalities who shed light on the fact how countries are dealing with the unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccine.
Recently, the South African-American actress took to social media and major platforms to raise voice for the unheard. Charlize urged countries to share the vaccines for the most deadly virus in recent history equally among underprivileged countries.
Charlize’s foundation, the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, has collaborated with the Ford Foundation to reach the message to world leaders. The foundation pointed out the importance of equity regarding vaccines and a waiver on the patents of vaccines.
Speaking to a leading daily, Charlize told, “We have to start looking at other ways to get enough vaccines to the market, and also into people’s arms,” she continued, “And I think that an emergency waiver on patents could really relieve a lot of that.”
Advocating Africa’s current condition, which produces only 1% of its required vaccines, she also stated how the entire continent relies on imported vaccines.
Theron also stated if the vaccine producing countries unlock their intellectual property, it will make a huge difference while fighting the pandemic. The actress said, “If we can get countries like South Africa, Brazil, and India to actually manufacture for their region, we’ll see a real uptake in how many vaccines we can actually bring to people.”
She took to Instagram to share her thoughts on the vaccine distribution recently. She wrote, “The disparity of access to the COVID-19 vaccine remains one of the greatest barriers to moving past this global crisis.” She also revealed how South Africa could administer only 17 million doses so far while the vaccination rate stands at only 5%.
Charlize also pointed out the fact how 17 out of the 20 G20 countries have managed to vaccinate two third of their population.
The activist later wrote, “That’s why I and CTAOP decided to speak out on the absolute cruciality of vaccine equity. We are so proud to join forces with the revolutionary Darren C Walker and Ford Foundation in calling on the G20 to redistribute vaccine supply, reinvest in medical and civil society infrastructure, fight misinformation and reimagine our global systems with equity, justice and collaboration at their core.”
Charlize shared a peek of her recent interview with a leading daily where she was seen speaking for the Africans right, vaccine equality, and how families have suffered due to COVID-19. She stated, “These viruses will not go away until we actually look at social injustices. We value certain lives more than others. And until that goes away, we will never get to the end of diseases like HIV or COVID.”
Meanwhile, the Africa CDC has chalked out a plan to establish five new vaccination sites across the continent and reach production to meet at least 60% of the vaccination needs by 2040.