South Africa's president has said the "selfish, unjust" refusal of pharmaceutical companies and allied Western governments to entertain emergency patent waivers on Covid-19 vaccines was endangering the entire world, Reuters reports.

"It is selfish, it is unjust, it is wholly unfair," Ramaphosa, proponent of the waiver, told the opening virtual session of the Qatar Economic Forum, a day after South Africa registered 13,000 new cases in a third Covid-19 wave.

"We are facing an emergency that is affecting the entire world ... and some countries are refusing this provision to be waived," he said.

"All we are asking is ... a three-year period to enable countries that have the capability to be able to produce the vaccines," Ramaphosa said. "Because no one is safe anywhere in the world without everyone being safe."