Prince Harry made a plea to world leaders to keep working to expand global vaccine access this week, saying “we are all at risk” in the meantime.
While introducing the GQ Heroes of the Year, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine team, at the GQ Men of the Year Awards on Wednesday, the Duke of Sussex said, “Until every community can access the vaccine, and until every community is connected to trustworthy information about the vaccine, then we are all at risk.”
He went on, “There is a huge disparity between who can and cannot access the vaccine. Less than 2% of people in the developing world have received a single dose at this point and many of their healthcare workers are still not even vaccinated.”
Harry, who relocated to America with wife Meghan Markle last year, has been advocating for widespread access to COVID-19 vaccines for months.
In May, at the star-studded Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World broadcast, he called for empathy, trust and above all, vaccinations, in the ongoing fight against the pandemic.
“This pandemic cannot end unless we act collectively with an unprecedented commitment to our shared humanity. The vaccine must be distributed to everyone everywhere… The virus does not respect borders and access to the vaccine cannot be determined by geography. It must be accepted as a basic right for all and that is our starting point,” he said.