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Rich countries failing to deliver Covid-19 vaccines

The UK and other rich nations have only delivered 261 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to low-and middle-income countries doses out of a promised 1.8 billion.

The figures come from a report published by the People’s Vaccine Alliance which shows that rich nations are failing on pledges made to support developing countries with Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

Earlier this year, the UK government announced that it would donate 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to other nations across the globe within the next year. Of those, 80% would go to the equitable vaccine sharing scheme Covax.

So far, the UK has only managed to donate 9.6% of the 100 million doses and even accepted 539,370 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from Covax this year. This is despite the UK already having ordered enough Covid-19 vaccines to vaccinate its population five times over.

Countries across Europe are also falling short of their targets. Germany has delivered 12% of the 100 million doses it promised, and France has delivered just 9% of the 120 million it promised.

The US has delivered almost 177 million doses but so far this consists of just 16% of the nation’s promised 1.1 billion figure.

More so, countries including the UK and Germany have blocked moves to waive intellectual property (IP) rules for Covid-19 vaccines and therapies set out by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Over 100 nations, including South Africa and India, have proposed removing patents on vaccines and Covid-19 related technologies so that more countries can produce vaccines across the globe.

At the same time, pharmaceutical companies have refused to share their technology with the World Health Organisations (WHO) so that developing countries can produce their own vaccines.

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said: “Rich nations and corporations are shamefully failing to deliver on their promises whilst blocking the actual solution; ensuring developing nations have the ability to make their own vaccines.

“It is painfully clear that the developing world cannot rely on the largesse and charity of rich nations and pharmaceutical companies, and hundreds of thousands of people are dying from Covid-19 as a result. This is beyond appalling.”

The report also examines the number of doses delivered by pharmaceutical companies to the Covax scheme. In total, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNTech initially promised to allocate 994 million Covid-19 vaccine doses. As it stands, the companies so far have delivered only 120 million, or 12% of their promised doses. This is 15 times less than the 1.8 billion doses delivered to rich countries by these companies.

Maaza Seyoum, of the African Alliance and People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa, said: “Across the world health workers are dying and children are losing parents and grandparents. With ninety-nine percent of people in low-income countries still not vaccinated, we have had enough of these too little too late gestures.

“Governments must stop allowing pharmaceutical companies to play god while raking in astronomical profits and start delivering actual action that will save lives.”

The report highlights Covax as needing to rely on the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical companies and rich countries. Instead, the People’s Vaccine Alliance states that Covax should have pushed “approaches that would have maximised the production of vaccines including open licensing and shared technology.’

Oxfam’s Robbie Silverman said: “The failure of rich country donations and the failure of Covax have the same root cause ―we have given over control of vaccine supply to a small number of pharmaceutical companies, who are prioritising their own profits.

“These companies can’t produce enough to vaccinate the world, they are artificially constraining the supply, and they will always put their rich customers at the front of the line.

"The only way to end the pandemic is to share the technology, and know-how with other qualified manufacturers so that everyone, everywhere can have access to these lifesaving vaccines.”

The People’s Vaccine Alliance, the African Alliance, Global Justice Now, Oxfam and UNAIDS― is now calling on nations to:

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