Wealthy Countries and Pharmaceutical Industries Preventing Early Exit from Pandemic: Experts

“They have looked the other way while millions have died needlessly”, reads a new letter.

In a letter on Wednesday, around 300 public health experts, academics, labor leaders, and activists condemned rich countries for preventing the world from an “early exit” from the coronavirus pandemic, by continuously obstructing attempts to scale up vaccine production and its distribution in underprivileged and disadvantaged nations. The letter was addressed to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and it appealed to the two leaders to turn down a recently leaked compromise offer that goes against South Africa and India’s well-known initial plan to forgo coronavirus-related patents throughout the pandemic.

The initial plan first made public at the World Trade Organization in October 2020 was aimed at enabling equitable global access to vaccines and therapeutics, but it has been thwarted by the European Union and other rich countries. The plan was also resisted by the global pharmaceutical industry, which has strongly profited by monopolizing vaccine production, and the industry strongly lobbied against South Africa and India’s proposal.

“The European Union and other rich countries have chosen to block the path to an early exit from this pandemic. They have put the lives of millions of people at risk by perpetuating vaccine inequality, creating the perfect breeding ground for new and potentially more dangerous or vaccine-resistant variants”, reads the letter. “They have looked the other way while millions have died needlessly because developing countries were not given the rights and the technology to make or import Covid-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments”, argued the public health experts and activists. 

While the compromise offer is yet to be concluded, the experts in the letter maintain that the new proposal would not increase the accessibility of coronavirus vaccine, but instead would erect new obstacles for low-income nations that are seeking to eliminate patents and expand the production level of vaccines, treatments, and test kits as the spread of the virus continues.

The chief of the African Alliance and the convener of the Vaccine Advocacy Resource Group, Tian Johnson, raised the alarm surrounding the adoption of the leaked proposal and said that it “would only make it harder to manufacture affordable medical products in the Global South”. “This proposal would only add more conditions before countries can begin production. Even the WHO-backed mRNA hub in South Africa wouldn’t be safe from Big Pharma’s lawyers”, he added.

Dr. Mira Shiva of the All-India Drug Action Network, which is one of the signatories to the letter, in a statement issued on 13th April, similarly asserted that the new proposal “isn’t the comprehensive intellectual property waiver that India and South Africa demanded.” Shiva further added, “The WTO is letting the European Union and the United States hammer out a rich country stitch-up. We urge Prime Minister Modi and President Ramaphosa to reject this capitulation and demand the full TRIPS waiver that is needed for the global fight against Covid-19 and future health crises.” 

The rising criticism of the rich countries and pharmaceutical industries for their failure to do everything in their capacity to expand vaccine distribution is accompanied by the surge in coronavirus infections in different countries of Europe and Asia. Experts have attributed this wave of infection to a very contagious Omicron subvariant. Though the originating point of the subvariant is not completely known, the Omicron strain was first discovered in southern Africa in November 2021. 

During a pandemic preparedness hearing on 12th April, the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus remarked that “the inequities that we have faced in the past two years—for therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines have undermined our efforts to bring Covid-19 under control.” Tedros noted the glaring discrepancy in the global distribution of basic health rights, when he said, “Even as some high-income countries now roll out fourth doses of vaccine for their populations, one-third of the world’s population is yet to receive a single dose, including 83% of the population of Africa.” According to Tedros, while there’s a global decline in the death rates due to the coronavirus, it’s too early to declare the pandemic over. The transmission rates of the virus remain significantly high, wide vaccine distribution is still lacking in many countries, and the easing of social measures and restrictions is facilitating the ground for new variants to spread.

According to the World Health Organization, the global failure to share vaccines equitably is taking its toll on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and the only way to prevent this unjust order is for the the countries and companies that control vaccine supply put contracts for COVAX and the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust first for deliveries and donated doses.

Originally published at Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON.