People’s Vaccine 1-3-2021

 

3, January 2021                         People’s Vaccine

In the face of a global pandemic disturbing reports have emerged that wealthy countries are hoarding much of the vaccine supply. This means that close to 90% of the population in dozens of poorer countries will be forced to wait until at least 2022. This has prompted a growing movement calling for the development of a people’s vaccine and the suspension of intellectual property rights to expand production and access.

Two notable activists are driving the movement. Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni, a policy adviser to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, and Achal Prabhala, a public health advocate and coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa.

According to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, which includes Amnesty International, Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now and Oxfam, wealthy countries, including the United States, are hoarding enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations between three and five times over. This is a travesty; a global pandemic requires a global response.

Large pharmaceutical companies are keeping the vaccine research a closely guarded secret. In order to maximize their profits, these companies are limiting supply and maximizing costs leaving billions to die a slow painful death.

The UNAIDS executive director, part of the People’s Vaccine Alliance and  The World Health Organization also warned about the dangers inequitable distribution of the vaccine.

This is WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“We simply cannot accept a world in which the poor and marginalized are trampled by the rich and powerful in the stampede for vaccines. This is a global crisis, and the solutions must be shared equitably as global public goods, not as private commodities that widen inequalities”.

Achal Prabhala is coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in IBSA — that’s India, Brazil and South Africa. He recently co-authored an op-ed published in The New York Times headlined “Want Vaccines Fast? Suspend Intellectual Property Rights.”

Big pharma is now challenging the People’s Vaccine, a coalition which is united to produce a people’s vaccine, not a profit vaccine.

It’s not right on moral grounds. It’s not right on public health grounds, “Nobody is safe until everybody is safe.

AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is leading the way to becoming a more equitable vaccine.

Oxford University which was leading the research entered into a collaborative contract with AstraZeneca, allowing their vaccine to be more accessible to more developing countries.

AstraZeneca entered into a contract with Indian based Serum Institute, and made an agreement to produce 1 billion doses, so that’s vaccinating 500 million people. Half of them will be in India.

Each dose would have a fixed price $4.

The people vaccine alliance likes to remind pro-profit companies that   a lot public money was used in their basic vaccine research. If all vaccine companies remove their intellectual property barriers, this would allow a significant increase in vaccine production.

For example South Africa and India successfully campaigned with the World Trade Organization, to temporarily suspend a trade rule called TRIPS, which is an agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property.

There is an overwhelming support from developing countries for this proposal, but the WTO works on consensus, which means that even if five or six very rich countries oppose the proposal, it actually won’t pass. And that’s exactly what’s happening. The U.S., the EU, the U.K. and a few other rich countries, as well as, inexplicably, Brazil, have opposed this proposal and are stalling it.

Over 90% of the Pfizer vaccine has already been sold to a small number of wealthy countries. Additional supplies will not be available until 2022. Rich countries should follow the example of the polio vaccine developer, Jonas Salk, who, when asked whether he was going to patent his invention responded “Hahaha, can you patent the sun?”

It seems pharmaceutical companies have made their business decision, - profits triumph concerns over human life. Billions will die a preventable death!