The World Health Organisation (WHO) has taken exception to the bilateral deals on Covid-19 vaccines being carried out between countries and companies, warning that such moves were putting at risk the promise of Covax, the WHO led global initiative aimed to ensure rapid and equitable access to the jabs against the pathogens.
“Of some 50 countries where Covid-19 vaccines are being administered, nearly all are wealthy nations and 75 percent of doses have been deployed in only ten countries,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in his speech at a meeting in Geneva. COVAX is the global initiative to ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries, regardless of income level.
“At least 56 bilateral vaccine deals have been signed, which fragments the market, forces countries to compete, and drives up prices of Covid-19 vaccines,” he pointed out.
"Vaccine nationalism is self-defeating and inefficient, leaving the world's poorest and most vulnerable people at risk," he warned. "The emergence of rapidly spreading variants makes the urgent and equitable rollout of vaccines all the more important."
"It is understandable that governments want to prioritize vaccinating their own health workers and older people first. But it is not right that younger, healthier adults in rich countries are vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries," Tedros said.
"The situation is compounded by the fact that most manufacturers have prioritized regulatory approval in rich countries where the profits are highest, rather than submitting full dossiers to WHO," he said. "To put it bluntly: many countries have bought more vaccine than they need."
The WHO chief called on all manufacturers of vaccines that meet international standards of safety, efficacy, and quality to prioritize their submission to WHO for Emergency Use Listing, the Xinhua news agency reported.
He stressed that Covax needs to "receive extra doses soon, and not the leftovers many months from now."
Last week, COVAX had announced that, pending WHO emergency use listings, nearly 150 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford candidate are anticipated to be available in the first quarter of 2021, via existing agreements with the Serum Institute of India (SII) and AstraZeneca.
"2021 could be a year with renewed hope that we can overcome the acute phase of the pandemic," he said. "We cannot succeed as countries acting alone. Global solidarity is the only way forward."