International humanitarian medical NGO, Doctors Without Borders, has reiterated its call to wealthy nations and pharmaceutical corporations to provide solutions to ensure equitable access to coronavirus vaccines for poor countries.
MSF has urged world leaders to support a proposal by South Africa and India to waive monopolies on COVID-19 medical tools.
“A vote is going to be happening at the WTO’s council and if that proposal is supported – at the moment there are 100 countries supporting SA and India’s official proposal – then that means that if we waive intellectual property and if patents are not upheld, then countries in middle and lesser-developing context are able to produce the vaccines themselves and the technology to treat COVID. The same countries that are hoarding the vaccines are the countries that are blocking this waiver,” says an advocacy coordinator for MSF’s Access Campaign, Kate Stegeman.
The WHO’s vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX delivered first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Ghana on Wednesday.
The scheme plans to deliver two of three billion targeted doses this year to poor and middle income countries.
The African Union also plans to assist in the supply of the vaccines to all 55 countries in the continent, with mobile network provider, MTN, having donated over R300 million towards the securing of at least seven million doses of a vaccine for the continent’s health workers.
WHO update on COVID-19 vaccines: