Covid vaccines: Calling the shots

‘The lesson of the coronavirus vaccine response is that a few billion dollars a year spent on additional basic research could prevent a thousand times as much loss in death, illness, and economic destruction. At a news conference, US health adviser, Anthony Fauci, highlighted the spike protein work. “We shouldn’t underestimate the value of basic biology research,” Fauci said. Exactly. But as many authors, such as Mariana Mazzacuto have shown, state funding and research has been vital to development of such products.

‘What better lesson can we learn from the COVID vaccine experience than that the multi-national pharma companies should be publicly owned so that research and development can be directed to meet the health and medical needs of people rather than to the profits of these companies. Then the necessary vaccines can get to the billions in the poorest countries and circumstances rather than to just those countries and people who can afford to pay the prices set by these companies.

“This is the people’s vaccine,” said corporate critic Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program. “Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development. … It should belong to humanity.”

Read here (The Bullet, Dec 2, 2020)

WHO Foundation established to support critical global health needs

‘The Foundation which is legally separate from WHO, will facilitate contributions from the general public, individual major donors and corporate partners to WHO and trusted partners to deliver on high-impact programmes. Its goal is to help broaden WHO’s donor base and work towards more sustainable and predictable funding.  The WHO Foundation will simplify the processing of philanthropic contributions in support of WHO and make such contributions possible on all aspects of health and WHO’s mission.’

Read here (WHO, May 27, 2020)

Listen: It’s a small World Health Organization

‘WHO is funded for about $2.2 to $2.3 billion a year. That’s about the size of one medium-size hospital, and it has to cover 194 countries. The objective of WHO, as stated in its constitution, is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. That’s a huge goal, and you’re spreading this budget extremely thin.’

Listen or read here (The Atlantic, May 27, 2020)

‘Short-sighted.’ Health experts decry Trump’s freeze on US funding for WHO as world fights pandemic

‘Health scholars have long pointed out that the funding of WHO is not commensurate with the global role it is supposed to play. The agency’s overall spending is less than the budget of some major hospitals in the United States. Less than one-fifth of its budget comes from “assessed contributions,” essentially membership fees paid by the 194 countries that make up WHO. The rest of the organisation’s funding comes from donations, with the United States as the biggest donor. “As each outbreak shows, countries’ expectations for the WHO are not aligned with the limitations on funding, political, and legal authorities those same countries set on the organisation,” Phelan says.

‘In an interview in December 2019, Tedros told Science that WHO’s reliance on just a few donors left the organisation vulnerable. “If one of them refuses to continue funding,” he said, “WHO could get into a serious shock”.’

Read here (Science, April 14, 2020)