If the world is to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19, richer countries must share their excess vaccines with poorer nations, the United Nations urged.
AS developing countries experience limited access on COVID-19 shots and while richer ones have supplies two to three times over than they actually need, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urges states for fairer distribution and ramp up reallocation and production of vaccines.
While on official visit in Russia, Guterres called out the current vaccine scheme may create more problems than solutions as the virus continues to spread “like wildfire” therefore pushing countries to face new waves of coronavirus infections, especially in developing nations.
“It is totally unacceptable to live in the world, in which developed countries can vaccinate most of its population, while many developing countries have not access to one single dose,” Guterres said on a briefing.
As a note, richer countries are already starting to inoculate their younger population as vaccination of their elderlies and other vulnerable groups are almost complete.
“So, that’s in interest of everybody that everybody is vaccinated everywhere. We believe that we need two things: to double the world’s capacity of production of vaccines and at the same time to have a more equitable distribution of vaccines,” he added.
The waiver controversy
On October last year, India and South Africa asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive the intellectual property rights on vaccines along with important medical technologies required to fight Covid-19 while the pandemic is ongoing.
Doing so will address vaccine inequality.
The proposal was supported by more than 100 member-states, but well-off countries were reportedly against this move. As a matter of policy if even one country from the 164 members of WTO went against a proposal, it will not come into fruition.
But last week, United States President Joe Biden expressed his support to allow poorer countries access to Covid-19 vaccines which reversed the country’s earlier stand. Guterres enthusiastically welcomed this initiative while pharmaceutical companies were infuriated.
WTO’s Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said this move will stimulate the ongoing negotiations on the matter while the United Kingdom opened the talks with the US to further discuss the move.
Pharmas react
But for the pharmaceutical industry, a patent waiver will do more harm than good in the long term arrangement of things, emphasizing the implications it will have on the incentives the drug makers get from profits such as opportunities for innovation.
According to International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), the proposal will not address vaccine production and distribution issues saying it is not the solution everybody needs.
“A waiver is the simple but the wrong answer to what is a complex problem,” said IFPMA “Waiving patents of COVID-19 vaccines will not increase production nor provide practical solutions needed to battle this global health crisis.”
The lobby group said the most feasible answer for existing challenges are for developed countries to share their surplus vaccines with poorer nations. (JT)
Tags: #Covid19, #Covid19vaccine, #herdimmunity, #vaccineinequality, #UnitedNations