The NGO Amnesty International recently published an instructive report on global access to Covid-19 vaccines. However, this access would simply be monopolized by the rich countries, with the complicity of the manufacturers. The organization denounces an "unprecedented human rights crisis".
According to Our World in Data, 43% of the world's population has received at least one dose of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. However, the world's vaccinated in the least well-off countries represent only 2%. In an article published by the Reuters news agency in June 2021, Dr. John Nkengasong, head of the Africa CDC, argued that Africa needed rapid access to vaccines. According to the person concerned, the continent is still very far from winning the battle against the coronavirus. The COVAX device supposed to ensure the redistribution of doses for at least 20% of the population of each country seems failing.
In addition, the WHO had tried to react by proposing (in vain) to the various countries to postpone the 2nd and 3rd doses in order to promote redistribution in the poorest countries. . In its report of September 22, 2021, the NGO Amnesty International speaks of an "unprecedented human rights crisis" .
The responsibility for this situation would lie with both governments and pharmaceutical companies. As far as vaccine manufacturers are concerned, the NGO believes that they should have distributed the doses fairly to the whole world. At the same time, the ideal would have been to take measures aimed at accelerating production. Finally, priority was given to rich countries in a commercial logic. Thus, the manufacturers would have acted without really taking into account the respect of human rights. Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson &Johnson delivered more than half of the doses produced in the highest income countries – AstraZeneca being the exception. Poor countries will see the promised doses arrive in 2022 via the COVAX device. Nevertheless, Amnesty International believes that further outbreaks of death will occur by then.
There is also the question of intellectual property, which the companies in question did not want to share. The same goes for technology and know-how. By sharing this with other companies, the production and delivery worries would never have arisen. In other words, effective scientific cooperation during the development of vaccines stopped as soon as marketing began. Obviously, the problem also finds at its source the richest states. The latter have bought almost all of the stocks and therefore appropriated the doses.
In order to overcome these inequalities, Amnesty International proposes to deliver no less than 2 billion doses to the poorest countries, within the remaining 100 days before the end of this year. Companies will have to suspend their intellectual property rights or grant non-exclusive licenses , open and global. They could also participate in the C-TAP, namely the group for access to technologies against Covid-19. Finally, the NGO also recommends the implementation of a real fair pricing policy and a priority to increase access to vaccines in the least affluent areas of the world.
