THE global response to the Covid-19 pandemic has created one of the “most dangerous periods for the poorest people on our planet,” a top UN official has warned.

In a closed briefing to the United Nations security council on Monday, deputy humanitarian chief Ramesh Rajasingham said that the pandemic was hitting poorer countries harder this year than in 2020.

He said that this trend was being fuelled by a lack of access to vaccines, an easing of public health measures, increased social mixing, and the spread of the delta variant to at least 124 countries, including 17 “fragile” and conflict-affected nations.

“This pandemic is far from over,” he said. “We are arguably in one of the most dangerous periods for the poorest people on our planet.”

In his briefing, Mr Rajasingham said that so far in 2021 almost three quarters of countries needing humanitarian aid have recorded more cases or deaths than in all of 2020. And in more than a third of those countries, he added, “at least three times more cases or deaths have been recorded this year compared to last.”

He called these numbers “just the tip of the iceberg,” explaining that testing capabilities in many of these countries are inadequate — so the UN does not have a true sense of the actual scale of the crisis.

“Today, we have a two-track pandemic – one trajectory for the rich world, and one for the poor – characterised by dramatic differences in vaccine availability, infection rates and the ability to provide policy support,” he said.

Mr Rajasingham urged the international community to respond by ensuring that the poorest countries have access to protective equipment, oxygen, testing kits and other critical supplies.

He said the fragile and conflict-affected countries must also have access to vaccines but warned that vaccine doses are essentially useless without effective delivery systems.

“Almost half of the countries with humanitarian appeals have administered less than 50 per cent of the doses delivered to them,” Mr Rajasingham said. “For example, in South Sudan, vaccines could not be administered because funding was not available for the rollout.”

The governments of Britain, Norway, Switzerland and all European Union member states continue to refuse to support a World Trade Organisation proposal by South Africa and India to waive patents for Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines.