Geneva: Three years after the Covid pandemic started, nearly 200 well-known people from around the world demanded on Saturday that the vaccine disparities that were present at the time of the crisis be put behind them. In an open letter, the current and former dignitaries urged world leaders to promise "never again".
The publication coincided with the third anniversary of the World Health Organization's initial designation of the Covid-19 crisis as a pandemic. Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta, president of Timor-Leste and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, joined former leaders of more than 40 nations in signing the letter, which was organised by the NGO coalition People's Vaccine Alliance.
Along with a number of current and former heads of UN agencies, other Nobel laureates, religious leaders, and former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon were signatories. The authors concluded that "the world is at a critical juncture" with the pandemic's end in sight.
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How the world prepares for and responds to upcoming global health crises will depend on decisions made now. In order to prevent future errors, world leaders must examine their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letter denounced the glaring injustice that characterised the response to the pandemic, which has officially claimed the lives of close to seven million people around the world, although it is believed that the actual death toll is much higher.
Many highly effective Covid-19 vaccines were created in record time, but the majority of the first doses were quickly purchased by wealthy nations, leaving many vulnerable people in poorer countries to wait in vain for vaccinations.
According to UN statistics, less than a third of people in low-income countries have received at least one vaccination dose as opposed to three-quarters of people in high-income countries.
The letter stated that the Covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests are the results of decades of publicly funded research.
Governments have invested tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in research, development, and advance orders, which has decreased the risks for pharmaceutical companies, the report stated. It insisted that these were the vaccines, examinations, and treatments that the general public received.
But “instead of rolling out vaccines, tests and treatments based on need, pharmaceutical companies maximized their profits by selling doses first to the richest countries with the deepest pockets,” it said.
The letter pointed to a study last year in the science journal Nature estimating that 1.3 million fewer people would have died of Covid if the jabs had been distributed equitably in 2021, amounting to “one preventable death every 24 seconds” that year.
The letter urged leaders to support the tricky, ongoing international negotiations toward a pandemic accord, to ensure that equity is a key feature in the final agreement.
It emphasised that in order to ensure the sharing of medical technology and know-how, governments would need to reach an agreement on the contentious topic of automatically waiving intellectual property rules in the event of international public health emergencies.
In order to ensure that vaccines and treatments can be developed quickly and implemented in all regions, it also called for sizable investments to be made in the global south's manufacturing capacity and scientific innovation.
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By taking these steps, "world leaders can start to fix the structural issues in global health that have slowed the response to Covid-19, HIV and AIDS, and other diseases," the report stated.
The integration of justice, equity, and human rights into pandemic preparedness and response is necessary.