Covax had to make corona vaccines accessible to the whole world. Through the organization founded by the WHO in April last year, 92 countries receive vaccines, mostly from wealthy countries that have enough vaccines themselves.
But that division is not yet going to go smoothly. According to aid organization Oxfam Novib, only 260 million doses of vaccine have been delivered, it was announced on Thursday. That is only 14 percent of the promised number of 1.8 billion.
Vaccination rates in countries that themselves have poor access to vaccines are therefore lagging considerably. For example, only four percent of the population of the African continent is vaccinated. What’s wrong here?
Liability causes delay
“There are plenty of vaccines, but they have all been bought up in the West,” Judith Sargentini, deputy director at aid organization Doctors Without Borders told news hour. “And to make matters worse, the transfer of vaccines to Africa is experiencing huge delays because there is no regulation about liability.”
But what about that liability? When the first corona vaccines hit the market, countries were in a hurry to start injections as soon as possible.
“That’s why individual member states of the European Union have agreed to take over from the developers the liability of the vaccines they purchased,” Sargentini said. For example, the pharmaceutical companies ran less risk if something went wrong with someone who had received the vaccine.
That is now causing problems. Because if something goes wrong in another country with a Covax vaccine that was originally from the Netherlands, the Netherlands would be responsible.
‘The key lies with pharmaceutical companies’
“In many Western countries, most of the population has already been vaccinated, and very little goes wrong. So that idea of that liability is actually a bit outdated,” Sargentini says. “And now those responsibilities from a country like the Netherlands have to be transferred to Covax, and from there to the countries in Africa that have a shortage of vaccines. And that is not happening.”
The key to this problem, as far as Sargentini is concerned, lies with the pharmaceutical companies. “It is unclear how Covax can take that liability on its own and then transfer it to another country. That is easy to solve, because the developers of the vaccines can take over the liability again.”
According to Sargentini, another problem lies with the patents. “There are only a few companies that are allowed to produce the corona vaccines. Western countries have bought that limited production, so that other countries did not have the opportunity to buy.” If the patents were removed from the vaccines, African countries would have the opportunity to produce vaccines themselves.
Faulty distribution system
One of the reasons for the slow vaccination rate in African countries is said to be the poor distribution system of vaccines there. But that’s not right, says biomedical scientist Els Torreele. She has been researching the international distribution of medicines for many years.
“Remember that vaccine deliveries that are now arriving in some of those countries are often scheduled last minute. And we hear that the vaccines donated through Covax are often already very close to their sell-by date, so there is very little time to get all the necessary to set up logistics matters. It requires planning and organization that apparently is not always there now.”
Moral disaster
WHO ambassador and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown believes rich countries and pharmaceutical companies should keep their promises. “It is estimated that the West will have 600 million doses of unused vaccines in storage by December and nearly 1 billion by February. Flying them south from today would save lives.”
Brown: “The fact that vaccines are available in one half of the world but denied to the other half is a huge blunder of international policy. It is a moral disaster of historic proportions that will shock future generations.”
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