Vaccines against Covid: Oxfam regrets "a charity approach" with poor countries

Competition is fierce around the world for the doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

So much so that 9 out of 10 inhabitants of nearly 70 poor countries may not be vaccinated in 2021 according to the NGO Oxfam.

"We remain more on an approach of charity than of justice", denounces the spokesperson of the NGO, Robin Guittard, Sunday on Europe 1.

INTERVIEW

Access to vaccines for all countries, especially the poorest, is a sensitive and controversial subject.

It must be said that competition between powers is fierce to secure the doses produced by the laboratories.

At the end of November, a petition to make the vaccine against the Covid-19 a free "common good" and accessible to all was even launched by a dozen European citizens supported by many associations and NGOs, including that of the fight against poverty Oxfam .

The aim is to force the European Commission to open a debate on the subject.

Despite initiatives set up at the international level, "we remain more on an approach of charity than of justice, that is to say with a real system of cooperation at the international level", regrets Robin Guittard, spokesperson for Oxfam France, Sunday in

Les Carnets du monde

on Europe 1.

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"The richest countries have already pre-ordered more than half of future doses"

His NGO is also sounding the alarm.

According to his calculations, "the richest countries, which represent barely 14% of the world's population, have already pre-ordered more than half of future doses of vaccines, 53% exactly", reports Robin Guittard.

Canada would thus have the capacity to vaccinate five times its population and the European Union twice, according to Oxfam.

Problem: at the same time, nearly 70 poor countries will only be able to vaccinate one in ten people against Covid-19 before the end of 2021. To achieve these results, Oxfam has studied the various contracts between states and the main producers of experimental vaccines.

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An international mechanism victim of Sanofi delays

Launched under the aegis of the WHO, an international mechanism for the supply of vaccines to developing countries called Covax aims to reduce these inequalities.

But for Robin Guittard, this redistribution program is more than imperfect.

Thus, "a third of vaccines within the framework of Covax were planned thanks to Sanofi", recalls the spokesperson.

Sanofi has just announced a delay on its vaccine.

"So that means we are going to wait even longer so that the poorest countries can actually have access to it as well."

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For the spokesperson for Oxfam, it is therefore necessary to stop a "competition that makes no sense in the midst of a pandemic" in order to "rather promote cooperation".

According to him, this "must go through a pooling of intellectual property rights".

"It makes no sense that pharmaceutical companies maintain a monopoly on vaccines, set prices independently and therefore can make large profits, when a large part of the population will not have access to this vaccine" , concludes Robin Guittard.