Rich Nations Attacked For Not Sharing Jabs And Tech

Wealthy western governments will “prolong” the pandemic if they fail to help other nations boost vaccination rates, an international alliance of non-governmental organisations, charities and trades unions has warned.

- Anna Isaac And Samuel Lovett

The latest Covid-19 variant, omicron, which some scientists fear could be more troublesome than the dominant and highly contagious delta variant, has given fresh focus to the gulf between nations’ vaccination levels.

“While we still need to know more about omicron, we do know that as long as large portions of the world’s population are unvaccinated, variants will continue to appear and the pandemic will continue to be prolonged,” said Dr Seth Berkley, chief executive of Gavi, the international alliance dedicated to improving access to all vaccines.

“We will only prevent variants from emerging if we are able to protect all of the world’s population, not just the wealthy parts,” he added.

Medical charities and trades unions have doubled down on calls to improve access to vaccines in poorer countries. The UK and other rich countries must share not only doses of the vaccines but the intellectual secrets behind them, organisations including the Trades Union Congress have warned.

The call gained fresh urgency after the World Trade Organisation, the epicentre of activists’ efforts to address vaccine inequity, indefinitely postponed a much-anticipated ministerial meeting.

The umpire of global trade said that travel restrictions imposed in response to the new variant would mean many ministers would be unable to travel to WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Nevertheless, Britain must still back the drive for an intellectual property waiver for Covid vaccines and treatments at the WTO, the TUC and NGOs said, via a mechanism called the TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement.