VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies on Sunday endorsed a plan to extend a freeze in official debt service payments by the poorest countries to mid-2021 and backed a common approach for dealing with their debt problems.

In a joint statement, Group of 20 leaders also strongly encouraged private creditors to take part in the initiative on comparable terms and said they were keeping an eye on the special challenges facing African and small island states.

The G20 debt relief initiative - launched shortly after the start of the pandemic in the spring - has helped 46 of 73 eligible countries defer $5.7 billion in 2020 debt service payments, freeing up funds for countries to fight the pandemic and shore up their economies.

But lack of private-sector participation and countries’ concerns about marring future access to capital markets have limited the success of the debt freeze, which was initially projected to generate some $12 billion in extra liquidity.

Some big creditor countries, including China, also failed to include all state-owned institutions, such as the China Development Bank, in responding to requests for debt relief.

The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated concerns about high debt levels affecting not just low-income countries, but some middle-income states as well.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva called for prompt and effective implementation of the debt treatment framework to provide permanent debt relief to the poorest countries, but said other countries also needed help.

“Going forward, we must also help those countries not covered by the framework to address debt vulnerabilities so that their economies can become more resilient,” Georgieva said in a statement after addressing G20 leaders.

Eric LeCompte, a U.N. adviser and executive director of Jubilee USA Network, said the new framework would push the private sector to get involved because it made G20 debt relief contingent on countries asking for similar treatment from private creditors, but offered no guarantees.

He said the G20 initiative also left out countries that needed urgent help.

“Six of the 12 countries with the highest COVID death rates are middle-income countries, which remain outside the scope of the G20 debt process,” he said.

The United States has said it is open to expanding the framework to include middle-income countries and small island states, but U.S. officials said that view was not currently shared by all G20 members. (Reuters)

Nearly 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be shipped and flown to developing countries next year in a “mammoth operation”, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said on Monday, as world leaders vowed to ensure the fair distribution of vaccines.

UNICEF said it was working with over 350 airlines and freight companies to deliver vaccines and 1 billion syringes to poor countries such as Burundi, Afghanistan and Yemen as part of COVAX, a global COVID-19 vaccine allocation plan with the World Health Organization (WHO).

“This invaluable collaboration will go a long way to ensure that enough transport capacity is in place for this historic and mammoth operation,” said Etleva Kadilli, director of UNICEF’s Supply Division, in a statement.

COVAX - co-led by GAVI vaccine group, the WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations - aims to discourage governments from hoarding COVID-19 vaccines and to focus on first vaccinating the most at risk in every country.

At a G20 summit this weekend, leaders of the biggest 20 world economies pledged to ensure the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests so that poorer countries are not left out.

Even before the pandemic hit, access to vaccines was unequal with around 20 million babies not receiving vaccines that could save them from serious diseases, death, disability and ill health, according to the WHO.

“We need all hands on deck as we get ready to deliver COVID-19 vaccine doses, syringes and more personal protective equipment to protect frontline workers around the globe,” said UNICEF’S Kadilli, who is working with the Pan American Health Organization and the International Air Transport Association.

UNICEF’s role with COVAX stems from its status as the largest single vaccine buyer in the world.

It said it procures more than 2 billion doses of vaccines annually for routine immunisation and outbreak response on behalf of nearly 100 countries.

Drugmakers and research centres worldwide are racing to develop COVID-19 vaccines, with large global trials of several of the candidates involving tens of thousands of participants well underway.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech could secure emergency U.S. and European authorisation for their COVID-19 vaccine next month after final trial results showed a 95% success rate and no serious side effects.

Moderna Inc last week released preliminary data for its vaccine showing 94.5% effectiveness.

The better-than-expected results from the two vaccines, both developed with new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, have raised hopes for an end to a pandemic that has killed more than 1.3 million people and wreaked havoc upon economies and daily life. (Reuters)

Gilead’s drug remdesivir is not recommended for patients hospitalised with COVID-19, regardless of how ill they are, as there is no evidence it improves survival or reduces the need for ventilation, a World Health Organization panel said on Friday.
“The ... panel found a lack of evidence that remdesivir improved outcomes that matter to patients such as reduced mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, time to clinical improvement, and others,” the guideline said.

The advice is another setback for the drug, which grabbed worldwide attention as a potentially effective treatment for COVID-19 in the summer after early trials showed some promise.

At the end of October, Gilead cut its 2020 revenue forecast, citing lower-than-expected demand and difficulty in predicting sales of remdesivir.

The antiviral is one of only two medicines currently authorised to treat COVID-19 patients across the world, but a large WHO-led trial known as the Solidarity Trial showed last month that it had little or no effect on 28-day mortality or length of hospital stays for COVID-19 patients.

The medication was one of the drugs used to treat U.S. President Donald Trump’s coronavirus infection, and had been shown in previous studies to have cut time to recovery. It is authorised or approved for use as a COVID-19 treatment in more than 50 countries.

Gilead has questioned the Solidarity Trial’s results.

“Veklury is recognised as a standard of care for the treatment of hospitalised patients with COVID-19 in guidelines from numerous credible national organisations,” Gilead said in a statement, referring to the drug’s brand name.

“We are disappointed the WHO guidelines appear to ignore this evidence at a time when cases are dramatically increasing around the world and doctors are relying on Veklury as the first and only approved antiviral treatment for patients with COVID-19.”

The WHO’s Guideline Development Group (GDG) panel said its recommendation was based on an evidence review that included data from four international randomised trials involving more than 7,000 patients hospitalised with COVID-19.

After reviewing the evidence, the panel said, it concluded that remdesivir, which has to be given intravenously and is therefore costly and complex to administer, has no meaningful effect on death rates or other important outcomes for patients.

“Especially given the costs and resource implications associated with remdesivir ...the panel felt the responsibility should be on demonstrating evidence of efficacy, which is not established by the currently available data,” it added.

The latest WHO advice comes after one of the world’s top bodies representing intensive care doctors said the antiviral should not be used for COVID-19 patients in critical care wards.

The WHO’s recommendation, which is not binding, is part of its so-called “living guidelines” project, designed to offer guidance for doctors to help them make clinical decisions about patients in fast-moving situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidelines can be updated and reviewed as new evidence and information emerges.

The panel said, however, that it supported continued enrolment into clinical trials evaluating remdesivir in patients with COVID-19, which it said should “provide higher certainty of evidence for specific groups of patients”.

The recommendation may raise further questions about whether the European Union will need the 500,000 courses of the antiviral worth 1 billion euros it ordered last month. (Reuters)

President Xi Jinping hailed China as the pivot point for global free trade Thursday, vowing to keep its "super-sized" economy open for business and warning against protectionism as the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic.

Buoyed by the signing of the world’s largest trade pact over the weekend, Xi said the Asia-Pacific is the "forerunner driving global growth" in a world hit by "multiple challenges."

He vowed "openness" to trade and rejected any possibility of the "decoupling" of China's economy, in his only nod to the hostile trade policy of US President Donald Trump's administration, which has battered China with tariffs and tech restrictions.

Xi was speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, held online this year because of the pandemic, which brings together 21 Pacific Rim countries, accounting for about 60 percent of global GDP.

In a speech that veered into triumphalism over China's economic "resilience and vitality" in bouncing back from the virus, which first emerged in the central city of Wuhan, Xi warned countries who insist on trade barriers would suffer self-inflicted wounds. (AFP_