British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he will urge the UN Security Council on Wednesday to adopt a resolution calling for cease-fires in conflict zones to allow the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.

Britain holds the council presidency this month and Raab is chairing a virtual high-level meeting of the UN's most powerful body on the problem of ensuring access to vaccines in conflict areas. Diplomats said 11 foreign ministers are expected to speak, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Britain says more than 160 million people are at risk of being excluded from coronavirus vaccinations because they live in countries engulfed in conflict and instability, including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

Britain's UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, stressed that it is in all countries' interests to ensure that people in hostile areas and vulnerable situations are vaccinated because "no one is safe until everyone is safe." "We want the Security Council to agree to support local cease-fires in those countries where vaccinations are ready to be rolled out on a case-by-case basis," she said.

"Humanitarian organizations and U.N. agencies need the full backing of the council to be able to carry out the job we are asking them to do." Woodward said cease-fires have been used to carry out vaccinations, pointing to a two-day pause in fighting in Afghanistan in 2001 that enabled 35,000 health workers and volunteers to vaccinate 5.7 million children under the age of 5 against polio.

Britain has drafted a Security Council resolution that Woodward said the UK hopes will be adopted in the coming weeks.

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