The relationship between poverty and the pandemic spread in some parts of the world is no longer denied by anybody. No matter where a pandemic starts, the poor always tend to bear the burden of that.
The important question is, what conclusions can be drawn from this connection?
Coming up with a vaccine to halt Covid-19 in a matter of months isn’t the only challenge. The next big test is getting billions of doses to every corner of the world at a time when countries increasingly are putting their own interests first.
Amid these developments, a meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) scheduled for Thursday becomes crucial.
Drugs and vaccines are trading commodities and hence they come under the WTO regime. The WTO’s TRIPS (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights) council has to take a decision on a proposal put forth by India and South Africa in October this year.
The two countries moved their proposal on the issue on October 2 before the WTO, and the proposal seeks a waiver from the implementation of certain sections of the TRIPS agreement which relate to intellectual property rights (IPR), patents, trade secrets, and copyrights in the larger interest of Covid-19, enabling countries to access drugs, vaccines, medical diagnostics, and technologies at affordable rates.
Most developing countries are in support of the proposal but rich and developed countries, such as the European Union nations, the US, and Canada oppose it.
India and South Africa have argued that waiver is necessary as several developing and poor countries were not in a position to utilize the TRIPS flexibilities for importing and exporting pharmaceuticals.
During the October 16 meeting of the Council for TRIPS, India said that the joint proposal was important for those who had insufficient or no manufacturing capacities of the health products required for combating the Covid-19 crisis.
Rich countries have secured enough coronavirus vaccines to protect their populations nearly three times over by the end of 2021, Amnesty International and other groups said on Wednesday, possibly depriving billions of people in poorer areas.
According to a Financial Times report, the price of some of the trial vaccines of Covid-19 could range between $3 to $30 per dose. Pfizer and BioNTech are looking to sell to the US government at $19.50 per dose.
The question is, could a price tag of $20 per dose, which translates roughly to 74,110.26 Ugandan Shilling or 1,500 Indian rupees, too much to ask?
Amnesty and other organizations including Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now, and Oxfam, urged governments and the pharmaceutical industry to take action to ensure the intellectual property of vaccines is shared widely.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also called on governments repeatedly this year to make a vaccine protecting against Covid-19 a “public good”.
The WHO has backed a global vaccine program scheme known as COVAX, which seeks to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, and 189 countries have joined. But some countries such as the United States have not signed up, having secured bilateral deals.
COVAX hopes to deliver some 2 billion doses by the end of 2021 but that would still only represent about 20% of the populations of countries that are part of the mechanism.
“Nearly 70 poor countries will only be able to vaccinate one in ten people against COVID-19 next year unless urgent action is taken,” Amnesty International said, based on recent calculations.
“Updated data shows that rich nations representing just 14% of the world’s population have bought up 53% of all the most promising vaccines so far,” it said.
Amnesty said Canada was the country that had bought the most shots when considering the size of its population with enough doses to vaccinate every Canadian five times.
The organization urged support for a proposal made by South Africa and India to the World Trade Organisation Council to waive intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments.
Inequality itself may be acting as a multiplier on the coronavirus’s spread and deadliness. Governments choosing to prioritize their own people could lead to disruptions in global supply chains, as seen when countries started to hoard sanitizers and medical protective gear at the start of the pandemic.