{"id":4440,"date":"2021-01-01T13:01:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T13:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=145349"},"modified":"2021-01-01T13:01:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T13:01:55","slug":"peoples-vaccine-calls-grow-for-equal-access-to-coronavirus-vaccine-as-rich-countries-hoard-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/01\/peoples-vaccine-calls-grow-for-equal-access-to-coronavirus-vaccine-as-rich-countries-hoard-supply\/","title":{"rendered":"People’s Vaccine: Calls Grow for Equal Access to Coronavirus Vaccine as Rich Countries Hoard Supply"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/p>\n
AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> As the United States, Britain and other nations begin unprecedented mass vaccination campaigns to combat the COVID<\/span>-19 pandemic, other parts of the world may not have access to vaccines for months, if not years. A new report finds as many as nine out of 10 people in dozens of poorer countries could miss out on the coronavirus vaccine until at least 2022, because wealthy countries, including the United States, are hoarding enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations between three and five times over. The report was issued by the People\u2019s Vaccine Alliance<\/a>, which includes Amnesty International, Frontline AIDS<\/span>, Global Justice Now and Oxfam.<\/p>\n This is Winifred Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS<\/span>, in a video produced by the People\u2019s Vaccine Alliance.<\/p>\n WINIFRED<\/span> BYANYIMA<\/span>:<\/strong> Huge pharmaceutical companies are keeping the vaccine research a secret. They\u2019re deciding how many vaccines get made, how much to charge for them, and who gets vaccinated. This will no doubt leave billions of people behind. Pharma companies are putting profit, not people, first. Yet billions of dollars of taxpayers\u2019 money is funding their work. We cannot let the CEOs of a handful of pharmaceutical companies decide our future. We need a vaccine that everyone can have free of charge, no matter where you live or whether you are rich or you\u2019re poor. We need companies to share all their research so we can make enough safe vaccines for everyone. We need a vaccine owned by all of us. To end this COVID<\/span>-19 pandemic, we need to pull together once more.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> That was the UNAIDS<\/span> executive director, part of the People\u2019s Vaccine Alliance. The World Health Organization has also warned about the inequitable distribution of the vaccine. This is WHO<\/span> Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.<\/p>\n TEDROS<\/span> ADHANOM<\/span> GHEBREYESUS<\/span>:<\/strong> We simply cannot accept a world in which the poor and marginalized are trampled by the rich and powerful in the stampede for vaccines. This is a global crisis, and the solutions must be shared equitably as global public goods, not as private commodities that widen inequalities.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> In early December, Democracy Now!<\/em>‘s Juan Gonz\u00e1lez and I spoke<\/a> to two guests about the calls for a people’s vaccine. Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni joined us from Oxford, England. She\u2019s policy adviser to the People\u2019s Vaccine Alliance. She worked for decades on access to medicines and healthcare in developing countries. And Achal Prabhala joined us from Bangalore, India, where he\u2019s coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in IBSA<\/span> \u2014 that\u2019s India, Brazil and South Africa. He recently co-authored an op-ed<\/a> published in The New York Times<\/em> headlined \u201cWant Vaccines Fast? Suspend Intellectual Property Rights.\u201d I asked Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni to talk about the call for a people\u2019s vaccine.<\/p>\n DR. MOHGA<\/span> KAMAL<\/span>–YANNI<\/span>:<\/strong> Well, the People\u2019s Vaccine is a coalition of organizations like Amnesty, Frontline AIDS<\/span>, Global Justice, Oxfam. It\u2019s co-led by Oxfam and UNAIDS<\/span>. And it has so many people, you know, academics, health activists, health experts, NGOs, patient groups, from all over the world, united for one aim, which has a people\u2019s vaccine, not a profit vaccine. So we want a vaccine \u2014 basically, we\u2019re calling for vaccination that is available for all people at risk, and then for everybody once we have enough doses, but not the way it\u2019s happening now, where if you happen to be born in a rich country, you get the vaccine; if you happen to be born in a poor country, you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And yesterday in the U.K., they started vaccinating older people, and there was some clapping. And, you know, it was a lot of joy. And, of course, it\u2019s brilliant, you know, that there is hope that this problem that we\u2019re all suffering from will be \u2014 you know, there\u2019s a light at the end of the tunnel. However, that joy is only limited to people living here. I\u2019ve got friends and relatives and people that I work with in other countries, in developing countries, who are saying, \u201cYeah, and what about us?\u201d And yeah, what about them?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So, this is really a big problem. There\u2019s just so many \u2014 it\u2019s kind of dividing the world between those who have and can pay and those who don\u2019t and can\u2019t pay, and, therefore, well, you can stand in the back on the queue; we don\u2019t know when you can get the vaccine. And that is just not right. It\u2019s not right on moral grounds. It\u2019s not right on public health grounds, because everybody is saying, \u201cNobody is safe until everybody is safe.\u201d Yeah, OK. How do you make everybody safe? So, a vaccine nationalism will not get you to everybody safe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And also, on economic ground, you\u2019re not going to get the economy growing, if just one \u2014 or back to normal, if one country vaccinate its population and the rest of the world isn\u2019t. You can\u2019t trade with people who are sick or people who have a high level of infections. So, you know, it just doesn\u2019t make sense at all.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The other important point is that this is not kind of fact of life that, oh, we have limited amount of vaccines. Actually, that\u2019s not the case. There are other options that will enable the world to produce more vaccines, and therefore vaccinate more people. So, basically, what\u2019s happening now, if you can imagine that we have a small pie \u2014 so that\u2019s one vaccine, a small pie. And so, basically, the rich can have the bigger share of it, and then we\u2019ll have just crumbs left for developing countries. Well, the idea is that: Well, why don\u2019t we increase supply so everybody can have a decent share of it, rather than fighting on a little one?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n JUAN<\/span> GONZ\u00c1LEZ:<\/strong> Well, Dr. Kamal-Yanni, I wanted to ask you about the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine and how access to that vaccine may be more equitable at this stage. Could you talk about some of the agreements that the AstraZeneca has reached with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n DR. MOHGA<\/span> KAMAL<\/span>–YANNI<\/span>:<\/strong> Well, basically, I mean, this vaccine has been developed by Oxford University. Oxford University has a standard on managing intellectual property. And it actually talks about open license. However, when they did the deal or the contract with AstraZeneca, it became exclusive license for AstraZeneca. But they managed to put some conditions in the contract about making the vaccine accessible to developing countries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So, AstraZeneca went to one of the big vaccine producers in India, the Serum Institute, and made an agreement to produce 1 billion doses, so that\u2019s vaccinating 500 million people. Half of them will be in India. So, it\u2019s a good way \u2014 you know, good start to make more vaccines available. They also \u2014 AstraZeneca also has some agreements with other countries, like with Argentina and Brazil, so that may cover a number of people in Latin America. But what about the rest of the population? There are some other deals with countries, but not production as such.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n You know, you can\u2019t leave \u2014 you know, so, AstraZeneca, compared to others, yes, they\u2019ve done good things and also fixing the price as \u2014 well, AstraZeneca said $4 per dose, and Serum said $3 per dose. For developing countries, it will be probably $3 per dose, so $6 per course or per person. But the thing is, you can\u2019t leave \u2014 this is the whole \u2014 you can\u2019t leave the decision on supply, price, which country, which patient, to companies. That\u2019s not their job. Their job is to produce. And the job of governments is to make more production, so you have to enable other producers. Like in India, there\u2019s other producers. Other countries would have other producers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So, if you allow technology transfer, so sharing technology \u2014 which the technology, by the way, a lot of it has been developed by public money, including from the U.S. and the U.K. and Europe and other countries. So, allowing the sharing of technology and removing the intellectual property barrier, so no patents on vaccines, then other companies can produce the vaccine, and we have more. And just like AstraZeneca did this contract with Serum, that includes, presumably, technology transfer, or some technology transfer, that can be done on a multilateral level, on a bigger level for more companies. Because all these deals, by the way, they\u2019re all secret. You don\u2019t know what\u2019s in it except what they announce, rather than if you have a multilateral agreement, you don\u2019t \u2014 you know, the negotiation happens in closed doors, but then, once they agree a license, then it\u2019s public. Then you see what\u2019s good and what\u2019s bad about it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> I wanted to bring Achal Prabhala into the conversation, again, coordinator of AccessIBSA project, which campaigns to access medicines for India, Brazil, South Africa. This piece<\/a> you recently wrote in The New York Times<\/em>, \u201cWant Vaccines Fast? Suspend Intellectual Property Rights.\u201d You\u2019re joining us from Bangalore, India. Can you talk about what that would mean, if you suspended intellectual property rights? Talk about trade secrets. Talk about patents. Talk about government subsidies of these private companies. And how does what\u2019s happening now, the development of this vaccine, compare to people\u2019s access, for example, to the flu vaccine, how that was developed and financed?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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