It truly is utterly disgusting, even more so because it is avoidable and unnecessary. Any quick review of dictionary definitions of that word - ‘disgusting’ - would reference keywords such as unpleasant, disapproval or offensive.
By any definition, the current reality is indeed offensive – it strips away any bluster about shared humanity, working together, leaving none behind or interdependence. It brutally and viciously reveals the depth of inequality in today’s world and the utter cant of so many of our ‘leaders’.
Of the 1.8 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses promised to the world’s poorest, a paltry 261 million have been delivered. This amounts to just one in seven agreed and promised. Once again, the world’s poor have been elbowed out of the way and pushed to the bottom of the health promotion stakes.
Such is the reality outlined by the People’s Vaccine Alliance (a network of over 100 organisations internationally) in its recent Dose of Reality report.
Once again, the world’s poor are being told to wait, this time until the world’s rich are vaccinated many times over; vaccine doses are stockpiled ‘in case’, until company profits are sufficiently gigantic and there is no hint of ‘market interference’ and our ‘intellectual property’ is protected.
Just one year after vaccines first became widely available, a pathetic 1.3% of people living in the poorest regions are fully vaccinated. While there is no doubt that many (but by no means all) Asian, Latin American and African governments have been at fault, the blame lies fairly and squarely with the world’s rich at many levels.
Once again, while the world has never been wealthier, it has never been more unequal and miserly. It is a shocking and avoidable display of inhumanity on a grand scale.
Pointing to the tiny doses donated to date in no way changes alters this reality. Claiming that we are doing our bit or our best is simply bluster.
The largest donor, the US, promised 1.1 billion jabs but delivered just 16% of that. The corresponding figures for the UK are 100 million doses promised, less than 10% delivered. For Canada: 40 million promised, just 8% delivered.
Meanwhile, of 994 million doses promised to Covax, the global vaccine distribution system, by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNTech, just 120 million (12%) have so far materialised.
The World Health Organisation has argued that it should be a global priority to deliver doses to developing countries before the end of 2021. However, the reality is that wealthy nations are, at best, working to a timetable of delivering additional doses at some undefined point in 2022.
While India, South Africa and over 100 countries have proposed that the World Trade Organisation suspend its enforcement of patents for coronavirus vaccines, the EU, the UK and Switzerland have blocked the move thus obstructing the scaling up of vaccine production and distribution. Some have even taken vaccines from Covax.
The principal pharmaceutical companies (except for AstraZeneca) have failed to openly share their technology. They have consistently over-exaggerated their projected production volumes, claiming there will ‘soon’ be enough for everyone while delivering most of their production to rich nations.
The People’s Vaccine Alliance is urging the suspension (not elimination, as some have claimed) of COVID-related patents; the use of all legal and policy tools to require pharmaceutical companies to share COVID-19 data and know-how; investment in decentralised manufacturing in developing countries to promote vaccine sufficiency and fairness based on need.
Additionally, the Alliance is calling for the redistribution of existing vaccines equitably internationally to achieve the WHO target of vaccinating 40% in all countries by the end of 2021 and 70% by mid-2022.
All of this is eminently doable. To fail to do so is nothing short of disgusting.