The International Community Must Prioritize COVID Treatment and Test Access
Global trade rules are extending the COVID pandemic
By Joseph Stiglitz, Lori Wallach.
Decades of international collaborative research, much of it funded or conducted by governments including that of the United States, enabled the rapid development of highly effective COVID mRNA vaccines. The substantial public contribution to this scientific triumph has, however, not persuaded governments to treat the vaccines as global public goods—resulting in starkly inequitable distribution that should be remembered as an epic failure for humanity.
Vaccines have been available for almost two years, yet only 20 percent of people in low-income countries have had a first shot. And almost no people in low- and middle-income countries have access to the most effective mRNA vaccines, because their production and distribution are under the monopoly control of BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna, companies to which governments have granted numerous patents and other intellectual property protections. The result has been a stark vaccine apartheid: shots and boosters of mRNA vaccines are easily available to people in wealthy nations while many people in the Global South continue to suffer the pandemic with no vaccines at all.
