A new report by the People's Vaccine Alliance warns rich countries are hoarding significant doses of Covid vaccines while poor countries risk missing out. The coalition of campaigning bodies says nearly 70 lower-income countries will only be able to vaccine one in 10 people. The threat looms despite Oxford-AstraZeneca pledging to provide 64 per cent of its doses, and WHO's vaccine commitment, known as COVAX, securing 700 million doses of vaccines to be distributed between 92 lower-income countries that have signed up.
The People's Vaccine Alliance – a network of organisations including Amnesty International, Oxfam and Global Justice Now, says not enough to go round, and drug companies should share their technology to make sure more doses are produced. Their research finds that rich countries have bought enough doses to vaccinate their entire population three times over if all the vaccines are approved for use.
While rich nations represent just 14 per cent of the world's population, they have bought up 53 per cent of the most promising vaccines so far. Oxfam's health policy manager, Anna Marriott was quoted as saying, “No-one should be blocked from getting a life-saving vaccine because of the country they live in or the amount of money in their pocket. But unless something changes dramatically, billions of people around the world will not receive a safe and effective vaccine for Covid-19 for years to come.”
The alliance has urged all pharmaceutical corporations working on vaccines to openly share their technology and intellectual property so that billions more doses can be manufactured and made available to everyone.
