vaccines

The cost of vaccinating the world against COVID-19 could be at least five times cheaper if pharmaceutical companies weren’t profiteering from their monopolies on COVID-19 vaccines, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance said today.

In response to Jeff Bezos’ space flight scheduled for Tuesday, Deepak Xavier, Oxfam International's Global Head of Inequality Campaign, said: "We’ve now reached stratospheric inequality. Billionaires burning into space, away from a world of pandemic, climate change and starvation. 11 people are likely now dying of hunger each minute while Bezos prepares for an 11-minute personal space flight. This is human folly, not human achievement."

Responding to the news that the number of global deaths from COVID-19 has now passed 4 million, Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s health Policy Manager and spokesperson for the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said: “This is a horrific milestone and each one of these lives lost is a tragedy. Many of these deaths could have been prevented had the successful vaccine science been shared and production of doses ramped up by more manufacturers across the world."

Responding to the announcement today that the OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting has agreed to push ahead with the two-pronged global tax reform deal and set a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent, Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said:  “This is not an ‘historic’ deal ―it is history repeating itself. Those who shamelessly rigged the global tax system to their benefit over a century ago have again ring-fenced the game for themselves."

Responding to the announcement that COVAX has received more funding and is planning to accelerate its vaccine rollout, Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy, Max Lawson, said: “More funding for COVAX and a quicker rollout of vaccines is a small piece of good news for developing countries struggling to get the doses they need, but at best fewer than a quarter of people in these countries will have been vaccinated by the end of the year."

Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said: "This G7 summit will live on in infamy. Faced with the biggest health emergency in a century and a climate catastrophe that is destroying our planet, they have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times. Never in the history of the G7 has there been a bigger gap between their actions and the needs of the world."

Responding to early reports of G7 leaders agreeing a 'Carbis Bay Declaration' to end future pandemics faster, Oxfam's Health Policy Manager Anna Marriott said: "It's welcome that G7 leaders are planning measures to end future pandemics faster, but the lack of urgent action to end the current crisis is unforgiveable."

In response to the announcement today from French President, Emmanuel Macron, that France will support a temporary waiver on intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said: “It is fantastic news that President Macron has joined US President Biden on the right side of history by supporting the calls from India and South Africa, as well as millions of people around the world."

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.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam Health Policy Manager and Policy co-lead for the People’s Vaccine Alliance said: "The 2021 Global Health Summit ended today in danger of being judged an historical failure of global solidarity to tackle a Covid-19 pandemic that is still, around the world, in its first expanding phase and yet to peak."