Why vaccine nationalism is a threat to millions

Brut America

Only a few countries now have the majority of the world's Covid vaccine supply.   This movement is hoping to change this — before it's too late.  Atlas Colombe Cahen-Salvador

Transcript

00:00A few countries have taken the majority of the vaccine.

00:03There is a huge disparity between who can and cannot access the vaccine.

00:09The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure.

00:30It's insane that as someone who's young, who's healthy, who lives in a wealthy nation,

00:36I had access to both doses of COVID-19 vaccines before someone who's older, at risk,

00:43vulnerable in a less wealthy nation. There's no moral justification for it.

00:48And if you think about it, I'll probably get access to a booster

00:51before 98% of Africa gets access to a vaccine.

00:55As of today, 75% of all vaccines have gone to 10 countries.

01:05In contrast, Africa received only 2% of doses.

01:10The wealthier countries tend to hold the most doses.

01:13It's the case of the US, of Germany, of France, and of the UK.

01:17And many, if not all, of those countries will now hold even more doses

01:22by administering a booster before other countries have access to vaccines.

01:32Originally, a lot of the countries that were the most touched were also wealthy countries.

01:37But with the second and third wave, it's no longer true.

01:40We saw this with South Africa in January and the new variants.

01:43And it was, for example, the case of Indonesia in August,

01:46where on a daily basis, 1,500 people died.

01:50And they only had 10% of the population vaccinated.

01:58So vaccine nationalism and the inequality in access to vaccines means that,

02:02one, we won't reach global herd immunity.

02:04And this has a lot of consequences.

02:07It means that we will have more genetic mutations, so more variants.

02:10And this means that, in turn, we will all be at risk.

02:13It will also have impacts on the global economy.

02:16And many, many people will die that shouldn't die in the first place.

02:28In 2021, if low-income countries had the same vaccination rates

02:33than high-income countries, $38 billion would have been added to their economy.

02:38If this is not the case, if we continue to act in isolation

02:42and in a nationalistic manner, we will all pay the price for it.

02:47Vaccine nationalism was done in 2009 with H1N1,

02:51when a few wealthy countries hoarded most doses.

02:55The rest of the world got vaccines, if ever, years later.

02:59And it's happening again with COVID.

03:01The pandemic has shown that countries have been acting individually,

03:04in panic, and with nationalism.

03:08There have been some great initiatives, like COVAX,

03:11that are aimed at ensuring that low-income countries have access to vaccines.

03:15But it's not enough.

03:16As of today, COVAX delivered 200 million doses

03:20out of the two billion they're supposed to deliver for 2021.

03:24We need a global health body like the WHO that has more powers,

03:28more competences, in order to be able to deal with future pandemics.

03:32Big pharma should share their tech and their licensing with other companies

03:36for the duration of the pandemic,

03:38to make sure that we produce more vaccines everywhere, faster,

03:42and that we save lives.

03:44And since they're not doing it,

03:45there are a lot of countries that are proposing to have a TRIPS waiver,

03:49which essentially means that they're not going to be able to

03:52get the vaccines that they're supposed to get.

03:54So, we need a global health body like the WHO that has more powers,

03:58more competences, in order to be able to deal with future pandemics.

04:01The third key is the free licensing,

04:05which is ensuring that more companies can produce the vaccines

04:08for the duration of the pandemic.

04:10This is being blocked by EU countries, by Norway, Switzerland, and the UK.

04:24At the beginning of the pandemic,

04:26we pushed a campaign to ensure that health workers

04:28got priority access to COVID-19 vaccines,

04:31and the WHO welcomed it.

04:33We're now working on getting big pharmas to share their licensing

04:36and tech with others across the world.

04:39In addition, there's an underlying problem,

04:41the fact that the WHO doesn't have enough competences

04:44to be able to deal with health crisis.

04:46So, we are working on getting a global health body such as WHO

04:50to have more competences, more power,

04:53and more accountability to prevent future pandemics.

04:56This is not the first pandemic we've seen in a lifetime,

04:58and it won't be the last one.

05:00So, we need to be better prepared.

05:02We need to make sure that future pandemics are stopped

05:04before they even start,

05:05and that we deal with it with unity and not nationalism.

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