People’s Vaccine

More than 170 former heads of state and government and Nobel laureates, including former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown, former President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of France François Hollande and Nobel Laureates Professor Joseph Stiglitz and Professor Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, today called on President Biden to support a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines and pursue a people’s vaccine to end the pandemic in an open letter today.

Rich countries must open the way to cheaper mass-produced COVID-19 vaccines in order to protect every person in the world and avert a $9 trillion “worst case” global economic catastrophe, said Oxfam today. They should also agree this week to inject $650 billion more into the global economy to help developing countries cope with the pandemic’s already devasting effects.

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.

In response to calls for a waiver of Trade and Intellectual Property Rules (TRIPS) for COVID-19 vaccines, which is backed by more than 100 mostly developing countries, being blocked again at World Trade Organisation talks by rich countries, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said:“This is a massive missed opportunity to speed up and scale up the production of lifesaving vaccines worldwide by waiving the intellectual property barriers that prevent more qualified manufacturers joining the effort.

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.

In reaction to Israel’s announcement to sending surplus vaccines to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Honduras, and Guatemala, Oxfam in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Acting Country Director Dina Jibril said: Israel’s deal to exchange surplus vaccines for UN votes and embassies, while the vast majority of almost 5 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are left to wait for the potentially life-saving vaccine is shameful and shortsighted. 

The supply of safe and effective vaccines for all is being artificially rationed because of the protection of exclusive rights and monopolies of pharmaceutical corporations, the People’s Vaccine Alliance said today.

In response to Johnson & Johnson's and Novovax release of Phase 3 Trial results of their respective COVID-19 vaccines, Niko Lusiani, Senior Advisor with Oxfam America, said: 

“Today marks yet another hopeful achievement in the fight against the coronavirus. Thanks to tireless scientific efforts, and funding from taxpayers like you and me, these two new vaccines could help turn the corner in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. The speed that the virus is mutating is only reinforcing the need for mass-produced vaccines available to everyone, everywhere, as soon as possible." 

The news that the Sanofi/GSK vaccine will not be ready until the end of 2021 is a bitter blow for poorer nations. Sanofi-GSK was set to provide nearly one third of COVAX doses – the global vaccine purchasing facility upon which many of the poorest countries depend. 

Commenting at the close of the EU council meeting where leaders agreed on a new EU 2030 climate target and discussed the EU’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Evelien van Roemburg, head of Oxfam’s EU advocacy office said: "The new, more ambitious, EU 2030 target still falls short of what is needed and what is fair. The EU must take urgent practical steps to deliver above and beyond this target."