The developing countries are already severely affected by the Pandemic as they lack enough resources to handle the Pandemic. 

Even now, with the countries starting to return to normal after vaccinating enough people, the poorer countries are yet to receive a dose. 

Hospitals are running out of oxygen, an already weak economy has been shattered, people are dying from COVID and starvation, poorer countries are the most affected by the Pandemic. However, such countries are yet to receive a single dose of vaccine.

The People's vaccine alliance has been warning that the developing and underdeveloped countries are facing a critical health crisis due to the shortage of oxygen and other medical supplies. 

While such countries are yet to receive a single dose of vaccine, the richer countries have vaccinated one in two-person with at least one dose of the vaccine.

The bill that can be crucial in overriding the monopoly of the big pharmaceuticals has been blocked at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The rich countries including the US, the UK, and the EU have blocked a crucial bill that would allow an urgently needed scale-up in the production of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines to ensure poorer countries get access to the doses they desperately need.

Although the COVAX initiative of WHO has been helpful to make the vaccine available in many poorer countries, at the current availability of the vaccines only 3% of the people in those countries will be getting a vaccine by the mid-year.

Despite the countries continue to urge to increase the production of vaccines in the poorer countries, they keep on defending the monopoly of Big Pharma in the production of vaccines.

For the vaccines to reach more people in lesser times, the vaccine should be produced on a much larger scale across a much wider geography at a much affordable cost. At the current trend, it will be difficult to meet the vaccine requirement soon.

The transportation cost will only add to the value if the production is concentrated in some rich countries, and the focus of Big Pharma will generally be on making the profit than providing at a cheaper cost.

Only the decentralization of the vaccine production and eliminating the monopoly of the Big Pharmaceuticals at a time of crisis can make the distribution of vaccines at a much wider scale possible.

“For the rich world, this proposed act of human solidarity to ensure that medicines and vaccines get to the whole human family simultaneously is in their own self-interest, not just an act of charity,” Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, one of the leaders of the People’s Vaccine Alliance said.

We should act now. There is no going back. It is totally unfair that rich countries, who have enough vaccines to protect their citizens, are blocking the TRIPS waiver, which could help poorer countries get the vaccines they need.

 

UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima says, “Amid so much personal selflessness, sacrifice and heroism, the People’s Vaccine Alliance denounces the hypocrisy, emptiness of human solidarity and myopic self-interest that defeats efforts to control the virus in countries. Only a truly global mobilization of vaccine production to rapidly scale-up the total number of low-cost doses available will get the job done.”

Countries like South Sudan, Malawi, Yemen have seen a dramatic increase in the COVID cases. Lack of vaccine in those countries is only making the thing worse. With the highly transmissive South African mutant, Malawi has seen a 9500% rise in coronavirus infection in recent months.