Coronavirus
Rich Countries Snatching Up Vaccines Before Poorer Countries Have a Chance, Advocates Warn
More than half a billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, according to the New York Times, and more than 75% of them have gone to people in the world’s richest countries: countries like the US, Canada, and the UK. According to a blog post in March from the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of around 50 anti-poverty and global aid groups, rich nations around the world are vaccinating one person every second, while the majority of poorer nations have yet to distribute even a single dose of the vaccine. The post warned that developing nations are facing critical shortages and medical supplies to cope with the number of cases they are facing. Many poorer nations won’t have widespread access to the vaccine until 2023 or 2024, according to a recent New York Times report.
Advocates are sounding the alarm on a disturbing trend in the global vaccination roll-out: poorer Black and brown countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, which are arguably in most dire need of the COVID-19 vaccine in comparison to more well-to-do countries, are having trouble getting any access to the vaccine at all because rich, Western countries have rushed to claim vaccine does for themselves.
More than half a billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, according to the New York Times, and more than 75% of them have gone to people in the world’s richest countries: countries like the US, Canada, and the UK. According to a blog post in March from the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of around 50 anti-poverty and global aid groups, rich nations around the world are vaccinating one person every second, while the majority of poorer nations have yet to distribute even a single dose of the vaccine. The post warned that developing nations are facing critical shortages and medical supplies to cope with the number of cases they are facing. Many poorer nations won’t have widespread access to the vaccine until 2023 or 2024, according to a recent New York Times report.
In many poorer nations, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already dismal economic and health conditions. In Yemen in the Middle East, for example, the pandemic has been layered on top of an ongoing civil war and humanitarian crisis. Lack of access to clean water due to the war had already led to rampant disease outbreaks, such as cholera, even before the pandemic.
So why have all the vaccines gone to rich countries and so few to the countries that need it most? According to the New York Times report, one issue is that governments of western countries have struck deals with vaccine manufacturers to ensure they get first dibs on the vaccines. Another issue, according to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, is that rich countries have allowed vaccine manufacturers to patent vaccine technology rather than requiring that they share it. This has prevented poorer countries from being able to produce vaccines for themselves, rather than having to import them.
“One year into the global pandemic, it’s an outrage that vaccine factories are lying idle, unable to produce COVID-19 vaccines because rich countries are prioritizing the patents of pharmaceutical companies ahead of the lives of people across the world, said Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now, which is a part of the People’s Vaccine Alliance. “A global suspension of patents is needed to speed up the production of these vaccines everywhere.”
In public remarks at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Monday, Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for more global aid for vaccine roll-out in poorer countries, noting that greater instability caused by the pandemic in those countries would be devasting for their citizens, but also poses concerns for the United States.
