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Epidemiologists, from some of the world’s leading academic institutions, delivered a stark warning today of the risk the world is taking by failing to ensure all countries have sufficient vaccines to protect people from COVID-19.

One year on from the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the People’s Vaccine Alliance is warning that developing countries are facing critical shortages of oxygen and medical supplies to cope with COVID-19 cases yet the majority have been unable to administer a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. In contrast rich nations have vaccinated their citizens at a rate of one person per second over the last month.

Two-thirds of countries are yet to meet the target of vaccinating 70 percent of people in all countries against COVID-19 set a year ago at the UN General Assembly, according to figures published today by Oxfam and The People’s Vaccine Alliance.

Without urgent action to relieve developing countries of all their external debt payments this year, and ensure they don't accrue into the future, the coronavirus could lead to millions of deaths and force half a billion more people around the world into poverty, said Oxfam today in response to the G7's joint statement on debt moratorium for poor countries.

"The outcome of the Nairobi summit signals a renewed commitment to development effectiveness that is critical to ending poverty. Rich, donor countries must get behind this agenda, not undermine it, especially as our world faces huge, unprecedented humanitarian challenges," said Oxfam International's executive director, Winnie Byanyima. 

The European Parliament has supported an amendment calling for Europe to support the temporary suspension of intellectual property rules for Covid-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments. In reaction to this vote, Evelien van Roemburg, head of Oxfam EU office, said: "This vote sends a strong signal that Europeans stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of the world in the fight against the pandemic."

More doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been delivered to the EU, the UK and the United States in the six-week run up to Christmas than African countries have received all year, new analysis from the People’s Vaccine Alliance reveals today.

The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.

Responding to the WTO’s published ‘outcome’ of negotiations over a waiver of Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy for Oxfam and co-chair of the People's Vaccine Alliance, said: "This text is a recognition that WTO rules on intellectual property are a clear barrier to ensuring people get the vaccines, tests, and treatments they need. It is a tragedy that it has taken almost two years and millions of deaths to reach this point and a travesty that the action proposed today falls well short of what is needed."

Reacting to the outcome of the Busan aid negotiations, Oxfam said donors had put off important decisions about how to improve aid.