Coronavirus: vaccines monopolized by rich countries, according to Oxfam
Half of future doses of vaccine against the new coronavirus already reserved by rich countries, this is the alarming observation made by the NGO Oxfam.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Half of future doses of vaccines against the new coronavirus already reserved by rich countries, this is the alarming observation made by the NGO Oxfam on Thursday: more than 5 billion doses ordered from several laboratories whose vaccines are in phase 3 of clinical trials.
This will make it more difficult to eventually supply the least developed countries.
However, "vital access to vaccines should not depend on where you live or on the money you have", regretted the president of Oxfam.
Publicity
Read more
This group of rich countries, which account for 13% of the world's population, has a simple strategy: source in advance from multiple competing manufacturers to ensure that they get at least one effective vaccine in the batch.
At the top of this list are the United States and the European Union, which together concentrate more than a billion doses.
But what will remain for states whose meager resources are already exhausted in the immediate response to the health crisis, asks Oxfam.
An international pooling device called Covax, supported by the WHO, brought together 170 states to allow the least developed to have access to a vaccine.
But there is one major absentee, the United States, which is boycotting the mechanism.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, this week castigated the "
vaccine nationalism
" at work and announced the EU's participation to the tune of 400 million euros in the Covax device, including the call for contribution ends this Friday.
More than 170 states have subscribed to it.
Our selection on the coronavirus
•
Listen to our
Coronavirus Info
column
•
Our
explanations
:
→
What are the persistent symptoms of Covid-19?
→
Young people and Covid-19
: health authorities concerned
→
Immunity to Covid-19 would be short-lived
→
Promising results for the vaccine against the coronavirus
•
How to make a mask and use it well
•
See also the
records
of
RFI Knowledge
on Covid-19
→
Birth of a pandemic
→
Daily proof
→
The history of epidemics
→
Science facing Covid-19
→
The geopolitical consequences
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Coronavirus
Health and medicine