G20 health ministers aim to vaccinate 40% of global population against Covid-19 by end-2021

‘Health Minister Ong Ye Kung and his counterparts from the Group of Twenty (G20) are aiming to vaccinate at least 40 per cent of the world against COVID-19 by the end of the year. The target was announced at the G20 Health Ministers’ Meeting, held from Sunday (Sep 5) to Monday in Rome.

‘In a press release on Monday, Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) said the meeting had also adopted a Health Ministers’ Declaration emphasising the importance of strong multilateral collaboration in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting global recovery, with the World Health Organization (WHO) taking a central and leading role. The health ministers also agreed that vaccination was key.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, Sept 6, 2021)

WHO starts data-sharing effort to prevent pandemics. Will nations cooperate?

‘WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence opens in Berlin backed by initial US$100 million from Germany. It aims to pool global disease data, and produce tools to predict outbreaks – but is reliant on countries taking part.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, Sept 3, 2021)

Developing country solidarity needed to overcome pandemic

‘As rich countries have delayed contagion containment, including mass vaccination, in developing countries, much weaker fiscal efforts in the South have worsened the growing world pandemic apartheid.’

This story is well argued and contains several relevant and informative links under the following subheadings:

• Lessons from first wave
• Sustaining businesses, nurturing economies
• One size cannot fit all
• Who can we count on?
• Relief, recovery, reform

Read here (IPS News, Jul 6, 2021)

Put people before profits for progress

‘Millions of people are expected to die due to delayed and unaffordable access to COVID-19 tests, treatment, personal protective equipment and vaccines. Urgent cooperation is desperately needed to save lives and livelihoods for all.’

This story is well argued and contains several relevant and informative links under the following subheadings:

• Vaccine apartheid
• Pfizer profits
• What the pandemic demands
• Technology transfer needed
• What the world needs now

Read here (IPS News, May 18, 2021)

Covax: A global multistakeholder group that poses political and health risks to developing countries and multilateralism

‘This report concentrates on the political and economic repercussions on the global South and how COVID and the multistakeholder structure of COVAX is driving a transformation of global governance. Multistakeholder governance is not the way to govern vaccine distribution, vaccine production, or the delivery of the vaccine to the peoples around the globe.

‘Multistakeholderism is premised on marginalising governments, inserting business interests directly into the global decision-making process, and obfuscating accountability. There are no standards of responsibility, obligation or liability for multistakeholder bodies. The multiple layers of the bodies ‘overseeing’ the multistakeholder COVAX program obscures any moral obligations, even while COVAX makes profound life decisions for hundreds of millions.

‘Probably no other commercial product has been produced that in its first years expects to have the entire world as its consumer base. COVAX as a multistakeholder body provides a gathering spot for business interests which otherwise may not be allowed to jointly plan marketing, productions, investments, and distribution in what is for them a major evolving vaccine global market. There is significant potential for commercial self-interest to be injected inappropriately into Covax decisions.’

Read here (Friends of the Earth International, Apr 7, 2021) 

What it will take to vaccinate the world against Covid-19

‘A special report outlines the challenges — from unleashing the power of mRNA vaccines, to the battle for temporary relief on intellectual-property rights...

‘In the long term, argues Friede, every region needs a facility that fully owns the production know-how and can produce vaccines. The gap is most egregious in Africa, a continent that imports 99% of its vaccines, says Nkengasong. It has only three big vaccine manufacturers. “Can a continent of 1.2 billion — projected to be 2.4 billion in 30 years, where one in four people in the world will be African — continue to import 99% of its vaccines?” Nkengasong asks.’

Read here (Nature, Mar 25, 2021)

Neoliberal finance undermines poor countries’ recovery

‘After being undermined by decades of financial liberalisation, developing countries now are not only victims of vaccine imperialism, but also cannot count on much financial support as their COVID-19 recessions drag on due to global vaccine apartheid...

‘Undoubtedly, distressed developing countries desperately need foreign exchange to cope. But IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s call to boost global liquidity with “a sizeable SDR” (Special Drawing Right) allocation was blocked by the Trump administration, who objected that it would give China, Iran, Russia, Syria and Venezuela access to new funds.

‘The Financial Times (FT) argues that the proposed new SDR1tn (US$1.37tn) issuance – almost five times the US$283bn issued in 2009 – is justified by the scale of the crisis. For the FT, it would be “the simplest and most effective way to get additional purchasing power into the hands of the countries that need it”...

‘With 85% of IMF votes required to issue new SDRs, and the US holding veto power with 16.5%, Biden administration support is vital. For SDR issuance under US$650 billion, the White House only needs to consult, rather than get approval from the US Congress.’

Read here (IPS News, Mar 1, 2021)

Four principles for urgent pharma action to combat Covid-19

‘Collaboration is needed between pharmaceutical companies and governments to combat the spread of COVID-19 and accelerate access to tests, treatments and vaccines. Norway, which co-chairs the Facilitation Council of the ACT-Accelerator, is committed to ensuring the global vaccination effort is managed effectively. Here are four principles which could ensure equitable access to COVID-19 tools and health products, particularly for low and middle-income countries:

• Principle 1: File for registration rapidly, widely and on the basis of the most rigorous standards
• Principle 2: Price health technologies fairly
• Principle 3: Expand production and supply capacity
• Principle 4: Transparency

Read here (World Economic Forum, Feb 9, 2021)

Vaccine wars: The global battle for a precious resource

‘Armed guards are patrolling the perimeter fence of a sleek factory. Software experts are fending off hackers. Border officials are checking trucks and ferries, not for weapons or illegal immigrants, but for a mysterious biochemical soup, while spies and spin doctors are feeding social media with scare stories flaming one national champion or another. Welcome to the first great geopolitical battle of the 21st century. It may sound like something ripped from the pages of a dystopian sci-fi novel, but in truth we’re seeing the opening salvos in the vaccine wars.

‘Rather than co-operating with one another to roll out a global vaccination campaign to rid the world of Covid-19, the major powers of the world are instead descending into a fierce, increasingly nationalistic competition. The EU is threatening to hold back supplies from Britain, the Americans are scooping up supplies wherever they can, and the Russians and the Chinese are engaged in a form of ‘vial diplomacy’ reminiscent of the Cold War. It is all starting to turn very, very nasty. We are seeing how quickly our globalised world collapses when push comes to shove. The effect of all this on national security, on industrial policy and on the movement of people around the world will be felt for many years to come.’

Read here (The Spectator, Jan 30, 2021)

The year global health went local: Bill & Melinda Gates

‘As hard as it is to imagine right now while so many people are still suffering from COVID-19, this pandemic will come to an end someday. When that moment comes, it will be a testament to the remarkable leaders who have emerged over the last year to steer us through this crisis.

‘When we say “leaders,” we don’t just mean the policymakers and elected officials who are in charge of the official government response. We’re also talking about the healthcare workers who are enduring unimaginable trauma on the frontlines. The teachers, parents, and caregivers who are going above and beyond to make sure kids don’t fall behind in school. The scientists and researchers who are working around the clock to stop this virus. Even the neighbors who are cooking extra meals to make sure no one in their community goes hungry.

‘Their leadership will get us through this pandemic, and we owe it to them to recover in a way that leaves us stronger and more prepared for the next challenge. Over the last year, a global threat touched nearly every person on the planet. By next year, we hope an equitable, effective COVID-19 response will have reached the whole world, too.’

Read here  (GatesNotes, Jan 27, 2021)

Vaccine nationalism? An incurable disease called hope

‘It is disheartening to see ‘vaccine nationalism’ eclipse the hope around the development of the vaccine. The rich countries, with 13% of the world’s population, have already secured 3.4 billion doses of the potential vaccines; the rest of the world has pre-committed vaccine orders of 2.4 billion doses. The poorest countries, with a population of 700 million people, have no agreements for the vaccine. They depend on the Covax vaccine, developed in partnership between the World Health Organization, the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Covax has agreements to secure about 500 million doses, which would be enough to vaccinate 250 million people and cover about 20% of the populations of the poorest countries. In contrast, the United States of America, by itself, has made agreements to purchase enough doses to cover 230% of its population and could eventually control 1.8 billion doses (about a quarter of the world’s near-term supply).

‘The way things are going, two-thirds of the world’s population will not have a vaccine before the end of 2022... The struggle between ‘vaccine nationalism’ and the ‘people’s vaccine’ mirrors the fight between the North and the South over questions of debt and over vast areas of human development... Precious resources need to go toward testing, tracing, and isolation to break the chain of infection of the virus; they need to go toward building up the public health infrastructure, including training health care professionals who would need to give the two-dose injection to billions of people; they need to be used for the building of regional pharmaceutical production; and certainly they need to go toward the immediate relief for people, including income support, food provision, and social protection against the shadow pandemic of patriarchal violence.’

Read here (The Bullet, Dec 4, 2020) 

UN special session on Covid-19 must recognise right to health & access to vaccines

‘The UN General Assembly is holding a Special Session on the Covid-19 pandemic at the level of Heads of State and Government on 3 and 4 December.. It took more than a year of discussions to overcome the opposition of certain states, notably the United States and President Donald Trump.

‘The holding of this Special Session (the 37th in the history of the UN) is of considerable importance. It is a unique opportunity to define and implement joint actions at the global level to fight the pandemic in order to ensure the right to life and health for all the inhabitants of the Earth. As the President of the UN General Assembly wrote in his letter of convocation: “Let us not forget that none of us are safe until we are all safe”....’

This is a lengthy opinion piece by Riccardo Petrella, Emeritus Professor, Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). His research and teaching fields have been regional development, poverty, science and technology policy and globalisation.

Read here (IPS News, Nov 30, 2020)

China pushes for QR code based global travel system

‘Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for a "global mechanism" that would use QR codes to open up international travel. "We need to further harmonise policies and standards and establish 'fast tracks' to facilitate the orderly flow of people," he said. The codes will be used to help establish a traveller's health status. But Human Rights advocates warn that the codes could be used for "broader political monitoring and exclusion".’

Read here (BBC, Nov 23, 2020)

Xi says China ready to boost global Covid-19 vaccine cooperation and travel

‘President Xi Jinping said on Saturday (Nov 21) that China is ready to step up global Covid-19 vaccine cooperation, and called for better international coordination on policies to facilitate movement of people.

‘Pharmaceutical companies and research centres around the world are working on potential Covid-19 vaccines, with large global trials of several of the candidates involving tens of thousands of participants underway. China has five home-grown candidates undergoing Phase III trials. With that [global movement] in mind, Mr Xi said China would propose the creation of a mechanism by which travellers' coronavirus test results were recognised internationally through digital health codes.’

Read here (Straits Times, Nov 20, 2020)

What Covid-19 reveals about twenty-first century capitalism: Adversity and opportunity

‘Twenty-first century capitalism features financialization and monopoly power. A structural perspective of contemporary political economy illuminates how these aspects shape the COVID-19 response. COVID-19 has exposed failures across health care systems, working conditions, supply chains, the depth of inequality, systemic racism, and features of globalization that exacerbate negative outcomes for the many. Examining access to medicines, personal protective equipment and vaccines, inequality and working conditions highlights just some of what is broken and what needs to be fixed. The unsparing challenge and immiseration of COVID-19 offer an opportunity to re-think basic structures of contemporary capitalism and re-imagine a more compassionate future.’

Read here (Springer, Nov 20, 2020)

Human Rights Watch: “Whoever finds the vaccine must share it” — Strengthening human rights and transparency around Covid-19 vaccines

‘The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that the fates of people all over the world are interconnected: protecting one country’s people and its economy from the impacts a deadly infectious disease is impossible unless the people of other countries are also protected. Governments have a critical role to play in funding efforts to develop safe and effective vaccines. But no amount of funding will guarantee equitable access without decisive collective action and global cooperation to challenge the profit-driven and opaque systems that have determined access to lifesaving treatments and vaccines in the past.

‘Governments should continue to fund Covid-19 vaccines, especially to ensure access for low- and middle-income countries. While doing so, they should take all possible measures, including directing and conditioning funds in ways that are aligned with their human rights obligations to share the benefits of scientific knowledge and its applications widely, and ensure participation, transparency, and accountability in vaccine research, development, and manufacturing.’

Read here (Human Rights Watch, Oct 29, 2020)

Big Pharma is not willing to help us defeat Covid-19

‘For months, experts have repeatedly told us that no one is safe from coronavirus until we are all safe. If that is true, we should be going all out to ensure the world’s resources are used to bring treatments and vaccines to the whole world as soon as possible. Several initiatives have attempted just that, but efforts have been stymied by the self-interest of big business, and by the leaders of rich countries who are terrified of undermining rules designed to keep their countries at the top of the pecking order.

‘A recent ground-breaking proposal by India and South Africa could change all that. Those governments have lodged a proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to suspend international patent laws for an extended period, allowing countries to share technology and produce their own versions of patented medicines, treatments and protective equipment without being held to ransom by the corporations which own those patents. It is a game-changer, which challenges one of the most shameful aspects of modern trade rules.’

Read here (Aljazeera, Oct 18, 2020)

Civil society organisations call for strong support for TRIPS waiver to combat Covid-19

‘Nearly 380 civil society organisations (CSOs) have urged Members of the World Trade Organization to strongly support the adoption of a draft decision proposed by India and South Africa for a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement to combat the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.

‘India and South Africa have submitted a proposal (IP/C/W/669) to the WTO TRIPS Council on a “Waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19”.

‘In their letter to the WTO Members, the CSOs said that in a global pandemic where every country is affected, a global solution is needed. According to the CSOs, adoption of a Waiver at the WTO level will suspend implementation, application and enforcement of the relevant provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to prevention, containment, and treatment of COVID-19.

‘It enables an expedited, open and automatic global solution to allow uninterrupted collaboration in development, production and supply, and to collectively address the global challenge facing all countries. “It’s time for governments to take collective responsibility and put people’s lives before corporate monopolies,” the CSOs emphasised.’

Read here (InfoJustice, Oct 16, 2020)

The Covid silver linings playbook

• The first is that we are living through one of the most exciting and promising periods of medical invention and innovation in history. 
• Second, deeper cross-border private-sector collaboration, often outside the purview of governments, is fueling this process of scientific leapfrogging.
• Third, the economic disruptions resulting from the pandemic have fueled multiple private-sector efforts to collect and analyze a broader range of high-frequency data in domains extending far beyond medicine. 
• Fourth, the COVID-19 shock has raised our collective awareness and sensitivity to low-probability, high-impact “tail risks.”
• Fifth silver lining... The pandemic has led country after country to run a series of “natural experiments,” which have shed light on a host of issues that go well beyond health and economics.
• Finally, the crisis has required many companies to hold candid conversations about work-life balance, and to devise innovative solutions to accommodate employees’ needs.

Read here (Project Syndicate, Sept 15, 2020) 

Covid-19 vaccines: EU prioritises preferential access, paying lip-service to global solidarity

‘The European Commission has released an “EU Strategy for COVID-19 vaccines” that is premised on sealing advance purchase agreements with vaccine producers to secure production of vaccines in the European Union and sufficient supplies for its Member States. Launched on 17th June 2020, the EU Strategy marks a major shift from earlier calls for global collaboration and solidarity in ensuring affordable equitable access to vaccines globally.’

Read here (Third World Network, June 26, 2020)