Secretary-General Antonio Guterres conducts hybrid amid pandemic press conference addressing United Nations priorities for 2021 at UN Headquarters in New York on January 28, 2021. Photo: VCG

The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday led calls for a coordinated global effort to vaccinate against COVID-19, warning that gaping inequities in initial efforts put the whole planet at risk.

Foreign ministers met virtually for a first-ever UN Security Council session on vaccinations called by current chair Britain, which said the world had a "moral duty" to act together against the pandemic that has killed more than 2.4 million people.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced alarm that just 10 nations have administered 75 percent of doses so far - and 130 countries have had none at all.

"The world urgently needs a global vaccination plan to bring together all those with the required power, scientific expertise and production and financial capacities," Guterres said.

He said the Group of 20 major economies was in the best position to set up a task force on financing and implementation of global vaccinations and offered full support of the UN.

"If the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire in the Global South, it will mutate again and again. New variants could become more transmissible, more deadly and, potentially, threaten the effectiveness of current vaccines and diagnostics," Guterres said.

"This can prolong the pandemic significantly, enabling the virus to come back to plague the Global North."

Henrietta Fore, head of the UN children's agency UNICEF, said: "The only way out of this pandemic for any of us is to ensure vaccinations are available for all of us."

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard denounced the "injustice" of what he called a "deepening gap" as wealthy countries "monopolize the vaccines."

There is already a plan to help developing nations - Covax is an initiative funded by donors and governments that aims to procure 2 billion vaccine doses in 2021 with options for a further billion.

Covax will soon be able to start delivery of vaccines after the World Health Organization approved the shot developed by AstraZeneca, on which the initiative is almost entirely reliant in its first wave.

But aid groups say that many people still risk being left out due to a shortfall in Covax funding.

Britain, one of the largest contributors to Covax with a commitment of £548 million ($760 million), reiterated a UN call for temporary cease-fires to allow vaccinations, estimating that more than 160 million people were at risk in conflict zones.

AFP