The issue of equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments requires considerable work. By May 15, 2022, less than 15% of the population in low-income countries had received their primary COVID-19 vaccination series.
Access to diagnostic tests in low-income countries is woefully inadequate, and COVID-19 therapies are hardly available. This failure has been catastrophic. It exposes the inability of a donor-driven charity model to deliver market-driven products, which should instead be inclusively and equitably produced and shared as global public goods.
The failure to make vaccines available to vulnerable populations including health workers in low-income countries in 2021, when demand was high, is contributing to a closing window of demand this year. Poor surveillance and low testing capacity in low-income countries risks failure to detect the emergence of dangerous new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Steps to support vaccine manufacturing capacity in low-income and middle-income countries are also running into challenges—eg, one manufacturer had to stop production of COVID-19 vaccine due to insufficient orders.
With no appreciable progress to create a platform that can equitably deliver global public goods, and the current sclerotic and insufficient progress to agree a Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) waiver, newer and more effective vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments will not be distributed equitably during this and future pandemic threats. Poorer countries will probably be expected to take excess doses of older and less effective vaccines, while wealthier countries will have preferential access to the most effective tools as they come on the market.
Source: Transforming or tinkering: the world remains unprepared for the next pandemic threat – The Lancet
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