Picture this scenario, you go to the grocery store, one that you always buy from, but you are denied entry because you are not fully vaccinated from COVID-19. And it’s not because you refused to get vaccinated but the vaccines are not available! Just how would that feel? This is a likely scenario bound to face low - middle income countries if not urgently addressed.
Politics of COVID-19 Vaccine
While the world struggles to get to back to normal and ensure everyone is vaccinated, issues of supply and demand are on the rise. In Africa, many countries are keen on administering as many first doses as possible and at the same time, under pressure to urgently use their vaccines before expiry date creating a shortage for the second jab. Most African countries got their vaccines under the COVAX scheme, a programme aimed to supply Africa with at least 600million vaccine doses. The programme, whose doses are largely sourced from the Serum Institute of India, suffered a setback when India halted vaccine exports.
This further waged the shortage of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. Currently, only 2% of the continent’s nearly 1.3 billion people have received one dose of AstraZeneca vaccine and only 9.4 million Africans are fully vaccinated, risking the lives of many who are already vulnerable to the virus.
Amidst the crisis, the EU has introduced The EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate (EDCC) aimed to help Europeans travel easily between member states. The certificate presented as a QR code contains information about an individual's vaccination status, test results or recovery status from COVID-19. This raised concerns on whether it seeks to segregate those who are vaccinated and those who are not.
As if not enough, the green pass is not issued to anyone vaccinated with an AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India.
Freedom of movement
While the COVID-19 green pass, is considered a noble cause, it infringes upon Freedom of movement across borders, that is protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Furthermore, in restricting movements of those not issued the COVID-19 green pass creates disastrous economic effects, particularly for developing countries, affects the rights of migrants and refugees and also deprive countries of valuable human resource.
In addition, it has the potency to widen xenophobia, racial attacks and discrimination associated with the pandemic.
Bridge the vaccine gap
While, WHO remains opposed to vaccine passes for international travel until COVID vaccines become “universally available’’ to everyone, for now it will be in everyone’s best interest to not just identify but successfully roll out measures to bridge the vaccine gap. Some of such measures include; leveraging funding to enhance impact of COVAX. This could go in not just manufacturing, but also purchase and distribution of vaccines in low and middle earning countries.
High income countries, and those that are well supplied with vaccines should endeavor to donate/distribute excess vaccines to other countries especially Africa. Already, countries like Kenya have received 358,700 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 donated by the Government of Denmark, it is also set to benefit from 14million doses of Pfizer vaccine from the United States government by the end of Jun 2021.
Another strategy is to increase/build the capacity of low and middle income to manufacture their own vaccines. This could be attained through a public-private partnership that includes voluntary licensing arrangements to increase manufacturing capacity, while assuring the transfer and use of the manufacturing-quality know-how needed for timely manufacturing of safe and effective vaccines.
Everyone deserves to be vaccinated
Since the development and widespread use of vaccines, there have been sentinel triumphs of public health sector. Today we are confident that as a result of vaccination, countries have successfully been able to eradicate deadly diseases like small pox, and significantly reduced cases of polio worldwide proving the efficacy of vaccine.
Currently, COVID-19 is a global pandemic, and to completely eradicate it, we must ensure that everyone is inoculated otherwise the virus will continue to spread and new variants will emerge, threatening global economic recovery.
Already in countries like US are reporting that COVID-19 cases are starting to reduce, as a result of increased vaccination and people taking extra caution to protect themselves from the virus. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 vaccines are effective in reducing spread of the virus, they also prevent one from getting seriously ill from the virus and protect one from contracting the virus from others, enhance the need to bridge the vaccine gap to ensure everyone is safe from the virus.
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