Liyana Shaji

December 15th, 2022

Vaccine Inequity During Covid-19

0 comments | 12 shares

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Liyana Shaji

December 15th, 2022

Vaccine Inequity During Covid-19

0 comments | 12 shares

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

The COVID-19 vaccine’s rapid development and approval offered relief to nations around the world. However, of the 1.5 billion doses that have been distributed to date, 75% of the vaccine supply was acquired by 10 countries alone.[1] Rich countries managed to buy stocks to vaccinate their population several times over, while poor countries are still struggling to vaccinate their healthcare workers. In the African continent, with a population of over 1.36 billion, less than 25 million doses were supplied.  The World Health Organization (WHO) calls the issue of vaccine inequity and injustice “not a mere moral failure, but an economic and human rights catastrophe and self-defeating”.[2] The COVID-19 crisis has led to the growing realization that shortage of many vital medications, vaccines, and raw materials is not inevitable, but rather a result of business and government policies and actions.[3]

International law recognizes ‘health’ as a fundamental human right, and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) grants, “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.” Article 12 mandates that states who are a party to the convention take necessary steps to consider the right to health important with respect to prevention, treatment, and control of epidemic and other diseases. the convention should also necessarily protect the right to health of other states and see that third parties in those states do not violate this right on any grounds. Under the control of disease, for example, individuals and states must promote disease control techniques like immunization programmes. Such an initiative will only be successful once states cooperate in this international dimension. This can be done by setting up bodies by the States party to the ICESR and UDHR in various countries to support those directly affected. Tracking the responses received by these bodies will help parties to the convention to appropriately communicate with those affected by human rights violations thereby acting as a channel to help mitigate[4] potential human rights impacts. In the COVID era, this becomes essential, since such an international perspective means states party to the ICESCR are precluded from hindering other States’ access to COVID-19 vaccines, and such actions are to be treated as an emergency. But recent studies on vaccine inequity prove that states are currently violating this principle.

There are several challenges associated with realizing the right to health in the context of vaccine inequity. Many countries have not ratified legal instruments that emphasize right to health like the ICESCR, making it, along with the paucity of international jurisprudence on vaccination, difficult to enforce.[5] With the lack of a strong law, citizens may not be able raise their claims concerning vaccination and right to health before bodies concerned.

The WHO created the COVAX programme, with the aim of providing access to COVID- 19 vaccines. When looking at the disparities in vaccination rates, it is evident that the programme failed to achieve its goals. The failure was primarily due to the exclusion of low- income countries from decision making, bilateral deals, vaccine nationalism and corporate decisions.[6]

COVAX has been accused of excluding organizations representing the interests of poorer countries from its top-tier deliberations, therefore depriving those who are most desperate of a voice. Rather than procuring vaccines through the COVAX program, which many developing countries were willing to do, several high-income countries, such as the United Kingdom, US, Canada, and even some upper-middle-income countries, such as Russia,[7] entered into bilateral deals with pharmaceutical companies, who have the authority to decide who gets access to medical developments.[8] Such deals aided in developing leading COVID vaccines in a short period of time, but also increased vaccine inequity giving rise to the issue of “vaccine hoarding” or “vaccine nationalism” as these arrangements determined where those vaccines would go. Due to these bilateral deals, there was no motivation for these countries to join COVAX, but without them COVAX’s entire concept would fail. To prevent that outcome, affluent countries were allowed to join COVAX while maintaining their bilateral deals. The US and UK promised to donate their surplus doses, but there is no clarity on how many doses pledged have been delivered till date. This illustrates that the aim of a global collaborative vaccination allocation process failed, and decisions taken by the wealthier countries determined where the vaccines would go.[9] In the US, The Defense Production Act was also invoked 18 times during the Trump administration and once under Biden. This resulted in exports of crucial raw materials ceasing, meaning they were not available for other nations.[10]

In the last two decades, pharmaceutical corporations decided not to register or sell their medicine in developing countries like Africa, South-East Asia, and many more because it was not financially viable, despite apparent medical needs and demand for the product.[11] With COVID-19 vaccines and other essential medical technology, supply controls over where to make items available has become a daily reality. The COVID-19 era could be said to be a repetition of a battle between developing countries and rich countries who protected pharmaceuticals in their countries during the HIV epidemic.[12]

The existing health innovation and access ecosystem seem to be driven by selfishness and political agendas, leading to the creation of surplus vaccines in a few countries while the others struggle to acquire doses. This shows that there is a breakdown in values, as human rights are being jeopardized in the name of wealth and competition. People in those countries may eventually lose faith in institutions that work to eliminate human rights violations and their governments. One of the effective moves taken to address vaccine inequity is World Trade Organization (WTO) members agreement on a TRIPS waiver, a deal to remove intellectual property (IP) barriers around patents for COVID-19 vaccines, boosting their manufacture and easing access.[13]

To eradicate vaccine inequity, rich countries must stop hoarding vaccines and pharmaceutical companies need to make intellectual property like patent and health technologies available to other nations as well. The WHO can set up committees to monitor vaccine distribution in every nation, helping to keep track of the various doses administered, and reduce vaccine wastage. Along with setting up committees, investing in Research & Development, and local production not having IP barriers in such situations is vital. The TRIPS waiver proposal raised at the WTO is a good start,[14] but it should not just be for COVID-19. When nations experience similar challenges in the future, such a measure should still be implemented.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Articles

  1. Muizz Akhtar, Is Covax finally going to vaccinate the world? VOX (June 11, 2021, 6:30 PM), https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22872438/covax-omicron-covid-19-vaccine-global-inequity.
  2. Kai Kupferschmidt, Vaccine nationalism threatens global plan to distribute COVID-19 shots fairly, 2 SCIENCE 1 (2020), https://www.scienceopen.com/document?vid=66ec3dd6-c881-4994-a309-e369df0ccecb.
  3. Els Torreele & Joseph J. Amon, Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Access, 23 HHR 273, 274-276 (2021).
  4. Gaelle Krikorian & Els Torreele, We Cannot Win the Access to Medicines Struggle Using the Same Thinking That Causes the Chronic Access Crisis, 23 HHR 273, 119, 121 (2021).
  5. Sirleaf, Matiangai, Disposable lives: COVID 19, Vaccines, and the Uprising, 121 CLR 71, 75 (2021).
  6. Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, The COVID-19 Vaccine Dilemma, 6 ADMIN. L. REV. ACCORD 49, 52 (2020).
  7. Andrew Green, WTO finally agrees on a TRIPS deal. But not everyone is happy. DEVEX (August 8, 2022, 7:30 PM), https://www.devex.com/news/wto-finally-agrees-on-a-trips-deal-but-not-everyone-is-happy-103476.

 

Online Resources

  1. Roser & E. Ortiz-Ospina, COVID19 vaccine doses administered, OURWORLDINDATA.ORG (Nov 6, 2021, 9:00 PM), https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-covid-vaccination.
  2. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, COVID-19 and the right to development: A call for international solidarity, OHCR (Nov 6, 2021, 10:00 PM), https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/COVID19-Right-to-development.aspx.
  3. Ainslie Pierrynowski, Vaccine Inequity and International Human Rights Law, ULTRAVIRES (Nov 4, 2021, 6:30 PM), https://ultravires.ca/2021/09/vaccine-inequity-and-international-human-rights-law/
  4. https://ultravires.ca/2021/09/vaccine-inequity-and-international-human-rights-law/
  5. Kupferschmidt, Vaccine nationalism threatens global plan to distribute COVID-19 shots fairly, Science Magazine (2020), www. sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/vaccine-nationalism-threatens-global-plan-distribute-covid-19-shots-fairly.
  6. Members pursue convergence for an IP COVID-19 response, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION, (Nov 8, 2021).

 

[1] M. Roser & E. Ortiz-Ospina, COVID19 vaccine doses administered, OURWORLDINDATA.ORG (Nov 6, 2021, 9:00 PM), https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-covid-vaccination.

[3] Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, COVID-19 and the right to development: A call for international solidarity, OHCR (Nov 6, 2021, 10:00 PM), https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/COVID19-Right-to-development.aspx.

[4]Ainslie Pierrynowski, Vaccine Inequity and International Human Rights Law, ULTRAVIRES (Nov 4, 2021, 6:30 PM),  https://ultravires.ca/2021/09/vaccine-inequity-and-international-human-rights-law/.

[5] https://ultravires.ca/2021/09/vaccine-inequity-and-international-human-rights-law/.

[6] Muizz Akhtar, Is Covax finally going to vaccinate the world? VOX (June 11, 2021, 6:30 PM),  https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22872438/covax-omicron-covid-19-vaccine-global-inequity.

[7] Els Torreele & Joseph J. Amon, Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Access, 23 HHR 273, 274-276 (2021).

[8] K. Kupferschmidt, Vaccine nationalism threatens global plan to distribute COVID-19 shots fairly, Science Magazine (2020), www. sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/vaccine-nationalism-threatens-global-plan-distribute-covid-19-shots-fairly.

[9] Gaelle Krikorian & Els Torreele, We Cannot Win the Access to Medicines Struggle Using the Same Thinking That Causes the Chronic Access Crisis, 23 HHR 273, 119, 121 (2021).

[11] Sirleaf, Matiangai, Disposable lives: COVID 19, Vaccines, and the Uprising, 121 CLR 71, 75 (2021).

[12] Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, The COVID-19 Vaccine Dilemma, 6 ADMIN. L. REV. ACCORD 49, 52 (2020).

[13] Andrew Green, WTO finally agrees on a TRIPS deal. But not everyone is happy. DEVEX (August 8, 2022, 7:30 PM), https://www.devex.com/news/wto-finally-agrees-on-a-trips-deal-but-not-everyone-is-happy-103476.

[14] Members pursue convergence for an IP COVID-19 response, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION, (Nov 8, 2021).

About the author

Liyana Shaji

Liyana Shaji is a final year law student studying at Symbiosis Law School, Pune. Her research interests include human rights, health law and intellectual property laws.

Posted In: Coronavirus | Culture | Health

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