PRIME MINISTER and Caricom chairman Dr Rowley is on record calling for a more equitable system of vaccine distribution to give developing countries a fighting chance to overcome the covid19 pandemic. This pandemic has once again revealed the extent to which developing countries are at the mercy of large profit-driven pharmaceutical companies.
As we strive to vaccinate our population as a precondition to returning our economy back to some semblance of normality, we are in a long line of helpless nations that have neither the political nor economic clout to challenge the naked vaccine nationalism that has once again reared its ugly head.
While many developed nations have significantly advanced their vaccination agendas, developing nations such as ours are virtually begging vaccine manufacturers to facilitate their roll-out programmes. Cognisant of the existing geopolitical order, the World Health Organization (WHO) anticipated such a scenario and established the Covax facility - an arrangement that aims to provide over two billion vaccine doses to developing countries by the end of 2021. But production has not been matching need, to the detriment of less wealthy nations. Despite calls for the ramping up of global vaccine production, there continues to be significant global supply-demand gaps.
Education International (EI) has been a leading voice in opposition to vaccine nationalism and large pharmaceutical companies profiteering from a world pandemic. It continues to urge members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to support the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver proposal initiated by South Africa and India, to temporarily lift intellectual property rights on covid19 vaccines and medical products.
This proposal would provide more freedom for manufacturers and suppliers to operate in an expedited manner, given the urgency with which the global community must act to achieve herd immunity and stave off further social and economic calamity.
EI's general secretary states, 'Inequitable access to covid19 vaccines risks prolonging the pandemic, the ensuing school closures, and the educational disruption for months and even years to come. We are only beginning to grasp the longer-term negative impact of school closures on children and youth, and the disproportionate effects on already disadvantaged groups of students. A safe and permanent return to onsite education around the world requires equitable access to vaccines everywhere.'
Given the already devastating consequences of the pandemic, it is imperative that the global community acts decisively to ensure rapid access to affordable medicines and medical products. Any barriers to the accelerated production and distribution of vaccines and related medical products must be dismantled with alacrity, especially for the most vulnerable nations experiencing acute shortages.
While over 100 countries (mostly developing) have expressed their support for TRIPS, members of the European Union and the large pharmaceutical companies
