Unjust access to COVID-19 vaccines
Last week, I was privileged to be a part of a group of activists who got to meet digitally with K.M. (Gopa) Gopakumar of the Third World Network (TWN) about the status of COVID-19 vaccines around the world. Gopa’s focus is the global intellectual property regime and its impact on developing countries.
While vaccine programs are underway around the world, it is not happening equally. As of 31st January 2021, there have been around 98.8 million vaccination administered around the world using the 11 various types of vaccines that currently exist. However only 10 countries account for nearly 85% of these 98.8 million administered doses.
Given the rate of vaccine development and distribution, this means that poor countries will likely be waiting until 2024 or 2025 before they complete the massive vaccination. Startling numbers!
What do we do about this unjust access to COVID-19 vaccines? You can learn more from Gopa on the Karibu Foundation’s website here.
