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Refugees living in camps are sharing one tap between up to 250 people and many have less than3.5 square meters of living space per person which will make it extremely difficult to contain the coronavirus outbreak, Oxfam said today.

Vaccinating the poorest half of humanity —3.7 billion people— against coronavirus could cost less than what the ten biggest pharmaceutical companies make in four months, Oxfam said today. 

Comment ahead of the Vaccine Alliance pledging conference tomorrow (4 June) that is expected to raise at least US$ 7.4 billion to support the roll out of vaccination programs across the developing world, and establish a new fund to help developing countries buy and distribute a coronavirus vaccine.

“Today’s lack of progress on debt relief is as irresponsible as it is underwhelming. Merely encouraging private sector creditors and multilateral banks to participate in the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) is woefully inadequate and a dereliction of duty. The G20 is in denial of the scale of response needed to address the worse global crisis in a century," said Jaime Atienza, Oxfam International’s Debt Policy Lead, in response to the communiqué of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting.

Coronavirus is threatening us all. With each day, in every family, community and country, more of us are being personally affected by it. To beat the pandemic and avert harm to the lives of billions we must work together. We need to act across all countries and for every person. Fighting for some but not others is not an option. It only fuels risk for us all.

The EU’s response to COVID-19 in the recovery package, and the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, are opportunities to help fix the broken global food system.

"In lieu of global cooperation and solidarity, pharmaceutical companies are being empowered to act as kingmakers ―deciding who lives and who dies― and using this new-found power to extract subsidies and potentially high prices for new COVID-19 vaccines," said Oxfam today in response to reports that French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, will prioritize the US for any new COVID-19 vaccine.

“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.