“The US is providing lots of vaccine doses to other countries right now, including the Philippines, as a gift. But they also do so because they have too many doses which will expire.” (Male, Philippines)
Access to vaccines differs tremendously from one country to another. While restrictions are lifted thanks to rising percentages of people being vaccinated in some nations, others are confronted with rising cases and deaths. By mid-June 2021, less than 1% of the African continent’s population had been vaccinated.[1]
This inequality in access to vaccines just adds to the overall increase in inequalities the pandemic has been showing since it began: inequalities based on age, gender, nationality and wealth. Ironically, this inequality in access to vaccines leads to an even bigger inequality: apart from health risks for those with far fewer vaccines, the virus continues affecting their society and economy.
Seeing this reality, we remember political statements from 2021 promising a different scenario. One of them was a promise from the EU Commission’s head who spoke about a vaccine against Covid-19 as “our universal, common good”[2]. She expressed that announcing a “Coronavirus global response”. COVAX was established based on that principle of global solidarity and common global humankind, aiming at an equal distribution of vaccines starting with 20% of each country’s population to be vaccinated first. However, that obviously did not work, due to Covax lacking money and even more to countries making their own contracts with pharmaceutical companies.[3]
This situation we face is not acceptable. It is totally unfair and contradicts the idea of human dignity of each and every one. No wander Pope Francis has urged access to care and to vaccines for everyone, especially in low-income countries.[4]
Enabling everyone an access to vaccines is also a question of human intelligence: a global pandemic cannot be combated only in nationalistic ways. It needs to be combated by the global community acting together.
Hence, the IYCW calls all political decision-makers and stakeholders to:
- declare Covid-19 vaccines and other key pandemic products a global public good and advocate for all currently unused production capacity - especially in the Global South - to be utilized as soon as possible;
- temporarily waive intellectual property rights on Covid vaccines, treatments and related technologies;
- advocate for genuine technology transfer, in particular through the WHO Covid-19 Technology Access Pool.
[1] Mid-June 2021, https://healthpolicy-watch.news/africa-covid-surge/
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/AC_20_749
[3] Compare Health Policy| Volume 397, ISSUE 10278, P1023-1034, March 13, 2021: Challenges in ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines: production, affordability, allocation, and deployment Authors: Olivier J Wouters, PhD, Prof Kenneth C Shadlen, PhD, Maximilian Salcher-Konrad, Msc, Prof Andrew J Pollard, FmedSci, Prof Heidi J Larson, PhD , Yot Teerawattananon, PhD et al., Published:February 12, 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00306-8, (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00306-8/fulltext#fig2
[4] https://www.voanews.com/europe/pope-francis-calls-access-care-and-vaccines-all
