COMMENT | Soaring vaccine earnings create 9 new billionaires

COMMENT | ‘No one is protected from the global pandemic until everyone is’ has become a popular mantra. But vaccine apartheid worldwide, due to rich countries’ policies, has made Covid-19 a developing country pandemic, delaying its end and global economic recovery.

Most rich countries have been blocking the developing country proposal to temporarily suspend relevant provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) for the duration of the pandemic to more affordably and effectively contain it.

Needed to quickly scale up production and affordable access to relevant diagnostic tests, medical treatments, personal protective equipment and prophylactic vaccines, the proposal – by South Africa and India in late 2020 – is now supported by more than two-thirds of WTO members.

The Biden administration has reversed Trump’s opposition to the proposal, albeit only for vaccines. Without necessary complementary measures, and with continued opposition from European governments, the US partial policy reversal has not had any real impact so far.

As the World Health Organization director-general notes, the pandemic is being prolonged by the “scandalous inequity” in vaccinations. “The global failure to share vaccines equitably is fuelling a two-track pandemic that is now taking its toll on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people”.

With new, more infectious, even lethal variants spreading rapidly, experts fear the worst for poor countries is yet to come. Meanwhile, vaccines will generate astronomical profits...