Vaccine for the wealthy

The WHO has said it is now quite obvious that there is a huge divide between rich and poor countries in their ability to access and give out the Covid-19 vaccine to their people. The WHO has said that in the longer term, this could have devastating impacts on the economy of the entire globe, costing it around $9.2 trillion. The WHO says it needs $26 billion this year for vaccine management and deliver vials of the precious drug, which could prevent Covid-19 from occurring to countries that cannot purchase their own supplies.

Experts from the International Chamber of Commerce say that the result of the economic fallout from an inability to control Covid-19 across the globe and deliver a more equitable response to it would damage the economy of the whole globe. More than this, it is also a humanitarian issue. The WHO director general has said that while a year ago around 1500 cases were reported to the WHO, almost all of them from China, we now have 2.1 million deaths around the world while the number of cases continues to grow. Only a vaccine can prevent the disease from multiplying still further with complications being created as more variants come into the picture.

The question of how to manage the problem is one that rich countries need to look at seriously. The reality is that they have bought up such large stocks or vaccine that there's too little to meet the needs of countries which are unable to spend so much on purchasing the vaccine. The WHO has made a plea for poorer countries to be served as well. It has pointed out the vaccine is in fact, only a start to the solution and not a magic wand in itself. The WHO says that through history, only one disease – smallpox – has been wiped out completely. We cannot then hope to wipe out Covid-19 at once or within a few months. It may take years to do so. But to manage this we need a more equitable, more even and more sensible distribution of the vaccine so that it can reach people in poorer countries as well. Currently this is not happening. We can see an example at home. Pakistan is one of the five most populous nations on the globe. Yet it is the only one of these five nations not to have begun a vaccine rollout or even to have received the vials of the vaccine. Whether this is due to poor management, as well as wealth, is something for health experts and economists to ponder. But the point is that the vaccine must reach every person on earth and be accessible to him or her if we are to create the kind of immunity that currently exists against smallpox and keep everyone safe. If a large number of people on the planet are not protected, the disease will not go away, but lurk as a constant threat in the background. Richer nations must then come in and put together resources to raise the funds needed for poorer countries to obtain and deliver the vaccine to their people, so that the entire globe once again becomes a safer place.