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Abstract
Background: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown a crystal-clear warning that nobody will
be safe until everybody is safe against the pandemic. However, how everyone is safe
when the pandemic’s fat tail risks have broken every nerve of the global economy and
healthcare facilities, including vaccine equity. Vaccine inequity has become one of
the critical factors for millions of new infections and deaths during this pandemic.
Against the backdrop of exponentially growing infected cases of COVID-19 along with
vaccine in-equity, this paper will examine how multilateralism could play its role
in mitigating vaccine equity through Global Health Diplomacy (GHD). Second, given
the most affected developing countries’ lack of participation in multilateralism,
could GHD be left as an option in the worst-case scenario?.
Methods: In this narrative review, a literature search was conducted in all the popular databases,
such as Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and Google search engines for the keywords
in the context of developing countries and the findings are discussed in detail.
Results: In this multilateral world, the global governance institutions in health have been
monopolized by the global North, leading to COVID-19 vaccine inequities. GHD aids
health protection and public health and improves international relations. Besides,
GHD facilitates a broad range of stakeholders’ commitment to collaborate in improving
healthcare, achieving fair outcomes, achieving equity, and reducing poverty.
Conclusion: Vaccine inequity is a major challenge of the present scenario, and GHD has been partly
successful in being a panacea for many countries in the global south.
Abstract Objective To analyze the premarket purchase commitments for coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) vaccines from leading manufacturers to recipient countries. Design Cross sectional analysis. Data sources World Health Organization’s draft landscape of covid-19 candidate vaccines, along with company disclosures to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, company and foundation press releases, government press releases, and media reports. Eligibility criteria and data analysis Premarket purchase commitments for covid-19 vaccines, publicly announced by 15 November 2020. Main outcome measures Premarket purchase commitments for covid-19 vaccine candidates and price per course, vaccine platform, and stage of research and development, as well as procurement agent and recipient country. Results As of 15 November 2020, several countries have made premarket purchase commitments totaling 7.48 billion doses, or 3.76 billion courses, of covid-19 vaccines from 13 vaccine manufacturers. Just over half (51%) of these doses will go to high income countries, which represent 14% of the world’s population. The US has reserved 800 million doses but accounts for a fifth of all covid-19 cases globally (11.02 million cases), whereas Japan, Australia, and Canada have collectively reserved more than one billion doses but do not account for even 1% of current global covid-19 cases globally (0.45 million cases). If these vaccine candidates were all successfully scaled, the total projected manufacturing capacity would be 5.96 billion courses by the end of 2021. Up to 40% (or 2.34 billion) of vaccine courses from these manufacturers might potentially remain for low and middle income countries–less if high income countries exercise scale-up options and more if high income countries share what they have procured. Prices for these vaccines vary by more than 10-fold, from $6.00 (£4.50; €4.90) per course to as high as $74 per course. With broad country participation apart from the US and Russia, the COVAX Facility—the vaccines pillar of the World Health Organization’s Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator—has secured at least 500 million doses, or 250 million courses, and financing for half of the targeted two billion doses by the end of 2021 in efforts to support globally coordinated access to covid-19 vaccines. Conclusions This study provides an overview of how high income countries have secured future supplies of covid-19 vaccines but that access for the rest of the world is uncertain. Governments and manufacturers might provide much needed assurances for equitable allocation of covid-19 vaccines through greater transparency and accountability over these arrangements.
1Department of South and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Central
University of Punjab, Bathinda, India
2Department of Sociology, School of Social Science and Humanities, Lovely Professional
University Phagwara (Punjab)-India
3Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy, Temerty Faculty of Medicine,
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1V7, Canada
4Center for Transdisciplinary Research, Saveetha Dental College, Saveetha Institute
of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai 600077, India
5Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical
Sciences, Wardha 442107, India
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