TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Remember the disabled during virus crisis, UN chief says
Change Size
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gives a press conference, at the 'IFEMA - Feria de Madrid' exhibition center, in Madrid, on Dec. 1, 2019, on the eve of the opening of the UN Climate Change Conference COP25.Guterres on Wednesday called on governments around the world to specifically take into account the billions of people with disabilities in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (AFP/Cristina Quicler)
U
N Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called on governments around the world to specifically take into account the billions of people with disabilities in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Even under normal circumstances, persons with disabilities are less likely to access education, healthcare and income opportunities or participate in the community," Guterres said in a statement released in support of a UN study on people with disabilities.
"The pandemic is intensifying these inequalities -- and producing new threats," he said.
"I urge governments to place people with disabilities at the center of COVID-19 response and recovery efforts and to consult and engage them," Guterres added.
"We must guarantee the equal rights of people with disabilities to access healthcare and lifesaving procedures during the pandemic."
Since it emerged late last year in China, the novel coronavirus has left more than 250,000 people dead, forced nearly half of humanity into some form of lockdown and plunged the world into a deep economic recession.
