Pope Francis urges Covid-19 vaccines for poor in Easter message

The pope's Easter "Urbi et Orbi" ("To the city and the world") message in the Vatican came as 60 million Italians spent the Easter holiday under lockdown.

Pope Francis urged Catholics to remain hopeful in his Easter Sunday address, calling vaccines an "essential tool" in ending the pandemic and urging their swift rollout to the world's poorest countries.

On the holiest holiday for the world's 1.3 billion Catholics and the second under the shadow of the coronavirus crisis, the pope focused his message on the world's most vulnerable -- the sick, migrants, people facing economic hardship, and those living in war zones like Syria, Yemen and Libya.

"The pandemic is still spreading, while the social and economic crisis remains severe, especially for the poor," the 84-year-old Argentine said, speaking to a congregation of only around 100 people inside the vast St. Peter's Basilica.

Vaccines are an essential tool in this fight," he said, calling on the international community to overcome delays in distributing vaccines "especially in the poorest countries".

Francis, who has focused on the plight of vulnerable groups since becoming pope in 2013, had already warned rich nations against vaccine hoarding in an address to the UN General Assembly in September