Four months after the G7 leaders last met and made pledges to increase global vaccine supply, a failure of action presents an alarming concern; at current vaccination rates low-income countries would be waiting 57 years to be fully vaccinated, The People’s Vaccine Alliance indicates.
Over a million people have died from COVID-19 since the last meeting held by the G7 back in February, 2021. Ahead of the G7 Leaders’ Summit slated for next week, The People’s Vaccine Alliance is urging the G7 to stop making empty promises. Instead they should take action to close the huge vaccine gap between their economies and poor economies.
This is based on new calculations from the Alliance- Oxfam, Health Justice Initiative, and UNAIDs. The group found that last month people living in G7 countries were 77 times more likely to be offered a vaccine than those living in the world’s poorest countries.
Additionally, G7 nations were vaccinating at a rate of 4.6 million people a day in May, meaning, if this rate continues, everyone living in G7 nations should be fully vaccinated by 8 January 2022. At the current rate – vaccinating 63,000 people a day – it would take low income countries 57 years to reach the same level of protection.
Given the 1.77 billion doses of COVID vaccines administered globally, 28 percent have been in G7 countries. Contrastingly, only 0.3 percent of COVID jabs have been given in low-income countries, although the G7 and low-income countries have a closely similar population size.
The Founder and Director of Health Justice Initiative in South Africa, Fatima Hassan remarked:
“Eight people have died from COVID every minute since G7 leaders last met. That’s more than a million lives lost, while just a few countries, including the UK and Germany, continue to block proposals to waive patents on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments which would enable every qualified manufacturer in the world to produce vaccines instead of a handful of US and European pharma corporations.
“Whatever pledges and promises the G7 make, they are still leaving pharmaceutical corporations to decide who lives and who dies, unless they back the ending of these COVID vaccine monopolies.”
Fatima Hassan, Director of Health Justice Initiative in South Africa
Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager also commented: “It is obscene that the UK, Germany and other rich countries, which are able to vaccinate their own people, are preventing poor countries from making the doses they need to save lives.
“The sad fact is developing countries cannot depend on COVAX or the good will of the pharma industry to save the lives of their people. G7 leaders must take this moment to stand on the right side of history by putting their full support behind the vaccine patent waiver supported by more than 100 countries. The G7 may be getting the vaccines they need but too much of the world is not and people are paying for patent protection with their lives.”
Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager
Of the G7 nations, only the US is in support of the proposal at the WTO to waive intellectual property rights. Two countries, the UK and Germany are opposing it, while Canada, France, Japan and Italy are sitting on the fence.
This is despite the fact that the public are strongly in favour of the waiver, with 70 percent people across G7 nations indicating that governments should ensure pharmaceutical companies share their formulas and technology, so qualified manufacturers around the world can help increase supply.
