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“The pharmaceutical industry’s attempt to rubbish the World Health Organisation’s initiative suggests that they care more for profits than people’s health," said Anna Marriott, Health Policy Manager for Oxfam, in response to the World Health Organisation’s call for governments to back a voluntary scheme to share trial data and patents relating to vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus.

More than a million people have died from COVID since G7 leaders last met back in February, when they made vague pledges to increase the global vaccine supply, but crucially failed to collectively back the waiver of intellectual property rules and investment in manufacturing vaccines in developing countries that would really make the difference.

The coronavirus pandemic is a crisis for everyone. All around us people are affected — our loved ones, our neighbours, our colleagues, our communities. 

The world’s ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day— during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty. 

In response to IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath’s statement that the coronavirus pandemic will trigger the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression, Nadia Daar, Oxfam International’s Head of Washington DC Office said: "The IMF’s assessment is chilling. The human suffering behind those numbers is almost unimaginable. Oxfam’s research shows that coronavirus could push half a billion more people into poverty".

This briefing describes new research that shows how extreme carbon inequality in recent decades has brought the world to the climate brink. It sets out how governments must use this historic juncture to build fairer economies within the limits our planet can bear. 

New figures from the Peoples Vaccine Alliance reveal that the companies behind two of the most successful COVID vaccines – Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna – are making combined profits of $65,000 every minute. The figures based on the latest company reports are released as CEOs from pharmaceutical industry meet for the annual STAT summit —the equivalent of a ‘Big Pharma Davos’— from 16-18 November.

The coronavirus pandemic will have devastating health, social and economic impacts in the world’s poorest countries. To measure up to this once-in-a-century crisis, save lives and build a better future, donors must urgently and massively increase international aid funds.

Ahead of the G20 Summit in Rome, Italy, Oxfam calls on G20 leaders to take urgent action to dramatically scale up manufacturing and access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world, promote a fair economic recovery, fight hunger, lower dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, and help the poorest countries adapt to the climate change already happening.

People seeking safety are trapped at borders across Eastern Africa due to COVID-19 measures.