Re: It’s self-interest to share our vaccines globally
Dear Editor,
I appreciate Richard Hurley's recent call for internationally equitable vaccination, which makes a clear case on both altruistic and self-interested grounds. Many rich and powerful countries are donating vaccine doses through COVAX. Unfortunately these doses – on the order of hundreds of millions – are too little, too slow.
With a global population of 7.7 billion people, vaccine-acquired herd immunity likely requires at least 12 billion doses. Current production estimates put us on pace to reach that target in many years instead of many months. To get to the number of doses humanity needs on a faster timeline, production must be greatly expanded. This appears to be beyond the capacity of patent holding pharmaceutical companies themselves, and those they are willing to license production to. Given the emergency and catastrophic nature of this pandemic, rich and powerful countries and the global institutions they control must do more of what they can.
First, they must utilize the WHO TRIPS waiver to free vaccine intellectual property so other entities can manufacture these vaccines.
Second, because these are somewhat novel and expensive production processes, they must use the C-TAP mechanism to share vaccine production know-how and to fund production ramp up.
Failing to take these steps risks moral culpability for millions of preventable deaths, case resurgences in highly vaccinated countries due to travel to and from undervaccinated countries, variants with vaccine resistance that threaten our pandemic endgame strategy, and economic shockwaves for all globally. These risks both extend the duration of the pandemic for all globally and worsen the toll of death and suffering. Those in the medical community can support campaigns advocating for policies for global vaccination equity by joining with the People's Vaccine Alliance and the MSF Access Campaign and their partners.
Rapid Response:
Re: It’s self-interest to share our vaccines globally
Dear Editor,
I appreciate Richard Hurley's recent call for internationally equitable vaccination, which makes a clear case on both altruistic and self-interested grounds. Many rich and powerful countries are donating vaccine doses through COVAX. Unfortunately these doses – on the order of hundreds of millions – are too little, too slow.
With a global population of 7.7 billion people, vaccine-acquired herd immunity likely requires at least 12 billion doses. Current production estimates put us on pace to reach that target in many years instead of many months. To get to the number of doses humanity needs on a faster timeline, production must be greatly expanded. This appears to be beyond the capacity of patent holding pharmaceutical companies themselves, and those they are willing to license production to. Given the emergency and catastrophic nature of this pandemic, rich and powerful countries and the global institutions they control must do more of what they can.
First, they must utilize the WHO TRIPS waiver to free vaccine intellectual property so other entities can manufacture these vaccines.
Second, because these are somewhat novel and expensive production processes, they must use the C-TAP mechanism to share vaccine production know-how and to fund production ramp up.
Failing to take these steps risks moral culpability for millions of preventable deaths, case resurgences in highly vaccinated countries due to travel to and from undervaccinated countries, variants with vaccine resistance that threaten our pandemic endgame strategy, and economic shockwaves for all globally. These risks both extend the duration of the pandemic for all globally and worsen the toll of death and suffering. Those in the medical community can support campaigns advocating for policies for global vaccination equity by joining with the People's Vaccine Alliance and the MSF Access Campaign and their partners.
Sincerely,
Andrew Goldstein, MD, MPH
Competing interests: No competing interests