[CTC] Empty Promises Will Not Save the World from COVID

Tue Sep 21 04:39:16 PDT 2021

Two releases on UNGA below (PVA & Health GAP)...

EMPTY PROMISES WILL NOT SAVE THE WORLD FROM COVID, CAMPAIGNERS WARN AHEAD OF BIDEN GLOBAL VACCINE SUMMIT
Leaders already failing to meet previous commitments as only 1 in 8 of doses promised at G7 have been delivered

On the eve of President Biden’s global COVID summit on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance are calling for world leaders to go beyond empty promises of charity and deliver bold action to increase manufacturing and access to COVID vaccines around the world.

The Alliance, which is a coalition of more than 75 organizations around the world united under a common aim of campaigning for a people’s vaccine for COVID-19, says President Biden’s ambitious goal to vaccinate 70 percent of the world by this time next year will not be met with the trickle of charity currently on offer from rich countries.

“World leaders have made big promises to vaccinate the world, yet they have failed to deliver on all promises. Instead, they allowed pharmaceutical companies to deprioritise poor countries in vaccine allocation. That’s why we have vaccine apartheid,” said Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of UNAIDS. “We need a new paradigm that rests on sharing the technology and know-how of vaccine manufacturing around the world, we need action, not promises.” <>

The Alliance called on President Biden and other Summit participants to work to end existing vaccine monopolies, waive intellectual property rules, mandate the sharing of vaccine technologies and know-how, invest in manufacturing capacity in developing countries as well as in research and development, and reallocate existing vaccine doses as soon as possible. 

“We are at a crucial point in this pandemic. While rich countries have administered 80 per cent of global doses, poor countries have had only 0.5 percent. This shocking inequality is a public health, economic, gender justice, and moral disaster,” said Abby Maxman, President and CEO of Oxfam America. “President Biden’s pledge to vaccinate 70 percent of the world by this time next year will not be met by empty promises, but with bold action. That starts by sharing the vaccine knowledge and technology now, so that developing nations can make their own doses.”

The Alliance estimates that only 13 percent of the one billion doses promised by G7 leaders in June have been delivered so far. Meanwhile, the international vaccine initiative COVAX has announced it is half a billion doses short of meeting even its already low target of enough doses for 23 percent of people in developing countries. At the same time, the G7 are on track to waste 100 million doses of the vaccines by the end of the year.

“Rich countries continue to offer pathetic trickles of charity while protecting the monopolies of pharmaceutical corporations and denying billions of people protection,” said Maaza Seyoum of the African Alliance and the People’s Vaccine Alliance in Africa. “With up to 10,000 people dying every day, nothing short of redistributing the rights to produce the vaccines will be enough.”

The Alliance is calling for a fast-track intensive process to urgently agree a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization with full backing of the US before November, and for President Biden and other world leaders to use every legal and policy tool available to insist pharma work with the WHO COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and the South African mRNA tech transfer hub to build up manufacturing capacity and ramp up production. 

“The US government has the recipe for the world’s most effective COVID vaccine and can choose to share this knowledge to help make billions more doses in the year ahead,” said Peter Maybarduk, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Program. “The World Health Organization has established an mRNA manufacturing hub in South Africa and will need far more ambitious support than wealthy countries have offered so far. Ending the pandemic is a choice.”

“India and South Africa proposed a TRIPS waiver nearly one year ago and have faced nothing but obstruction at every turn. Shameful inaction by President Biden is resulting in countless preventable deaths across the global South," said Asia Russell, Executive Director of Health Global Access Project (Health GAP). “President Biden must use his global stage at the COVID-19 Summit to call for rapid passage of a robust TRIPS waiver at the WTO. The world can't tolerate another day of his deadly delays.”

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is calling for President Biden and world leaders to:

Reach an urgent agreement on a waiver of intellectual property rules ahead of the TRIPS council in October, so that all qualified manufacturers, especially those in developing countries, are able to produce COVID vaccines.
Make legally binding commitments to share vaccine doses immediately, so that the most vulnerable and those working on the front line in developing countries are protected, before rich countries give third shots to healthy adults. 
Use every power available to make it a requirement for pharmaceutical companies to share technology and know-how with the C-TAP and the mRNA Hub in South Africa and ensure there is enough funding to make the technology transfer happen.

“Rich countries are selfishly looking out for themselves but short-changing all of us.  We need bold solutions now, not more empty gestures,” said Dinah Fuentesfina, Campaigns Manager at ActionAid International. “Enough is enough, we must put people before profits. We need a People’s Vaccine—now.”

/ENDS

Editors notes:
Campaigners protesting President Biden and other world leaders' records of failure on the global COVID-19 response are taking place outside the UN headquarters on Monday September 20, ahead of President's Biden's address before the UNGA general debate September 21, which is followed by the COVID-19 Summit September 22.

According to the Airfinity’s weekly update for September 17, 2021, the G7 could collectively waste 100 million doses in 2021 (based on their current donation pledges), rising to 800 million by mid-2022. In addition to expired vaccines, another potential significant source of waste around the world is the inability to use all the doses in multi dose vials, with more doses per vial associated with greater waste.

According to Our World in Data <https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-region>, more than 10,400 people died in one day from COVID-19, figures for 16 September 21. Global COVID death figures also available from WHO <https://covid19.who.int/>.

According to Airfinity data, 133,273,810 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been donated to Low and Lower-Middle Income Countries by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States have been delivered since the start of the pandemic. At the June G7 meeting in Cornwall UK, leaders of these countries pledge “one billion doses over the next year”. 

Country
Total donation deliveries to date of COVID-19 vaccine doses.
Canada
                                                                  1,260,600
France
                                                                  5,406,340
Germany
                                                                  3,568,080
Italy
                                                                  2,312,600
Japan
                                                                16,039,060
United Kingdom
                                                                  6,285,060
United States
                                                                98,402,070
Grand Total
                                                              133,273,810

======

Biggest Roadblock to Biden-Convened COVID-19 Summit’s Success: Fealty to Moderna and Pfizer

September 20, 2021 | Asia Russell <https://healthgap.org/author/asia/>, Jessica Bassett <https://healthgap.org/author/jessica/> and Brook Baker <https://healthgap.org/author/brook/>
https://healthgap.org/biggest-roadblock-to-biden-convened-covid-19-summits-success-bidens-fealty-to-moderna-and-pfizer/ <https://healthgap.org/biggest-roadblock-to-biden-convened-covid-19-summits-success-bidens-fealty-to-moderna-and-pfizer/>

Biden can’t achieve more ambitious targets with the same failing strategy

Refusing to fight for the TRIPS waiver and to compel COVID-19 vaccine technology transfer is resulting in preventable deaths and prolonging the pandemic 

Ahead of Biden speech at UNGA in NY, on Monday activists will protest Biden policies driving vaccine apartheid

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday and his summit on the global COVID-19 response on Wednesday, Health GAP released the following analysis of Biden’s summit targets and global COVID-19 response to date.

President Biden’s global COVID-19 response has been characterized by unquestioning faith in pharmaceutical companies to fix the current crisis of artificial supply scarcity, unaffordable prices, and inequitable distribution to disastrous effect. Despite widespread evidence that voluntary measures by the U.S. and other high-income countries such as dose sharing and vaccine donations are not working, Biden is citing these same measures as hallmarks of the draft plan prepared for his COVID-19 Global Summit. For example, Biden is calling for an additional 1 billion vaccine doses. But of 554 million vaccine doses promised to the Global South so far, Only 16%, Or 90.8 Million <https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations#how-many-doses-have-been-donated-by-each-country>, have been delivered. These inadequate interventions also deny low-income countries access to knowledge developed with significant public funding and government research. 

Experts are demanding Biden compel technology transfer immediately to save lives, a move he has refused to make to avoid upsetting the pharmaceutical lobby. Status quo protection of the intellectual property rights of profiteering pharmaceutical companies will not save us from this pandemic. Biden has the power to mandate the transfer of technology in order to scale up manufacturing capacity in the Global South. Instead of using this power, he is acting like a puppet of big pharma.

Biden’s Summit will be doomed to failure absent a fundamental reset in the United States’ approach to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Attaining his stated goal of reaching 70% of the world by 2022 hinges on that. Under the current strategy, more than 80% of vaccine doses have gone to high-income and upper-middle-income countries, while only 1% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. More of the same strategy will result in more of the same failure to control the pandemic – no matter how ambitious Biden’s targets are on paper.  

Protest on Monday: Activists will protest Biden’s failed pandemic response and demand an end to vaccine apartheid during a protest in New York at 12 pm on Monday, September 20 at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. More information about the protest is available Here <https://act.healthgap.org/end_vax_apartheid>. 

Analysis: Biden’s summit targets versus what is needed to equitably end the pandemic

News reports revealed Biden’s Targeted Outcomes From The Summit <https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/white-house-calls-on-global-leaders-to-set-coronavirus-targets/93fd0d4c-1610-47ea-8d94-729721989731/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2>, including several benchmarks related to global vaccination and testing. However, the leaked documents do not reveal a roadmap for achieving those targets. Biden’s summit targets fall short or leave serious questions regarding: 

1.    Vaccination
Biden’s target:  At least 70% of the world’s population fully vaccinated in all country income categories by UNGA 2022 (Q4 2022).
What’s needed: According to experts, the world is projected to produce more than 12 billion vaccine doses in 2021, with The Total Increasing To 18.4 Billion By March 2022, More Than  <https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/biden-global-covid-19-vaccine-targets/>enough for 70% coverage, indicating a delivery timeline by September 2022 is not only realistic—it is too slow and should be advanced to June 2022. But pharma companies have consistently failed to meet promised delivery targets for doses earmarked for COVAX and there is no reason to believe they will start to keep their promises to low- and middle-income countries now while demand from wealthy countries paying higher prices holds steady.
Given that reality, Biden’s coverage target cannot be achieved without technology transfer by drugmakers, compelled by Biden. Relying on drug manufacturers to set the terms of supply, price and distribution has had disastrous and deadly consequences up to now. Biden’s refusal to support using all available means to share mRNA production know-how makes him complicit in the deaths of millions. 
Interim goals must also be set as benchmark targets, especially since COVAX Has Announced A 25% Reduction <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/health/covax-global-covid-vaccine-boosters.html> in its vaccine supply forecast. Although Biden’s summit goal is more ambitious than the World Bank, IMF, WHO, WTO joint target of 60% by the middle of 2022, it is still neither specific enough nor does it describe the mechanisms of mandatory technology transfer and investments needed to increase vaccine supply and equitable distribution. 

Biden must confront pharma greed and catalyze Global South vaccine manufacturing. The World Health Organization-backed mRNA vaccine manufacturing hub, recently launched in South Africa, is focusing on producing the vaccine currently made by Moderna. Moderna has announced it will not enforce its patents, but it has refused to share information essential to manufacturing the vaccine and has refused to engage with the manufacturing hub. Experts Have Determined <https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/25/moderna-vaccine-patent-nih/> that the U.S. government holds rights to intellectual property critical to the Moderna vaccine, whose research and development was 99% funded by taxpayer subsidy. President Biden must compel Moderna to engage in tech transfer to facilitate additional manufacturing at the South Africa hub and in other locations in the global South.

In May, the Biden administration announced it would support a limited intellectual property rights waiver on COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization (WTO), but this superficial support has been meaningless in the face of Biden’s refusal to challenge world leaders that are still blocking it. With unfettered power over vaccine supply, price, and distribution, big pharma companies – Moderna and Pfizer, in particular – are holding hostage billions of people in countries around the world that will not have sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines for years. Meanwhile, they have heaped Spurious And Racist Claims <https://mg.co.za/africa/2021-09-18-the-convenient-myth-of-an-africa-spared-from-covid-19/> on the prospect of urgently sharing knowledge and expanding production capacity with African manufacturers, even while the continent has been systematically blocked from self-sufficient manufacturing. 

At every turn, Biden has relinquished his power to big pharma companies and CEOs rather than confronting pharma greed to expand global manufacturing of life-saving vaccines and provide access to the billions of people who are still unprotected – without a reasonable end in sight. Biden must stop abetting the deadly harm Moderna, Pfizer and other big pharmaceutical companies are doing if he truly aims to get the pandemic under control.

2.    Testing
Biden’s target: Ensure a minimum of 1 per 1,000 people are tested per week before the end of 2021 or test positivity rates are less than 5% per week in all countries.
What’s needed: Biden’s global testing goals are too unambitious. The test kit quantities and frequency of testing specified are significantly less than what is needed for community and outbreak surveillance and for a new test-and-treat strategy when outpatient treatment of early mild and moderate disease is approved. Testing continues to be insufficient in the U.S., causing additional community spread and burdening the healthcare system. These failed strategies must not be exported to the rest of the world.

3.    Treatment
Biden’s target: Ensure all countries have timely access to authorized safe and effective therapeutics by ensuring they are available to all low-income countries/lower-middle-income countries in 2021, and effective new non-IV treatments are available in 2022. 
What’s needed: The treatment goals are partially focused on in-patient severe cases with a goal of making outpatient therapies more available, but no concrete targets are provided: the quantities of treatments are unclear. Outpatient management is crucial for communities in the global South, where access to formal care in hospital settings is typically prohibitively expensive and overstretched before COVID-19. Biden offers no clear strategy on how to expand production and lower costs of monoclonal antibody therapies through measures such as mandated technology transfer, nor on what steps there will be taken to ensure access to antiviral medicines if approved.

4.    Financing 
Biden’s target: Establish and fund a global health security financial intermediary fund (FIF) in 2021. Commit to seed funding level (e.g. $10 billion) and host (e.g. World Bank.) 
What’s needed: The U.S. must support multilateral funding for pandemic preparedness building on evidence-based models of what works. Health experts are recommending that the U.S. Support Investments For Pandemic Preparedness And Pandemic Response <https://healthgap.org/the-global-fund-a-foundation-for-health-equity> by building on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), a funding mechanism with a 20-year, proven track record of accountability to directly impacted communities, with a governance structure that establishes an equal say in decision making for governments from the global South, civil society and high-income countries. Instead of wasting precious time creating a siloed, potentially duplicative, and unaccountable new fund, the administration should build on what is working, and leverage the platforms that are delivering health impact. 

Funding pledged by the U.S. for pandemic preparedness and pandemic response – as well as any new funding for dose donations – must be additional. The White House has already been guilty of “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” with a $500 million payment to Pfizer by the State Department paid out by taking funds already committed To USAID For Vaccine Distribution <https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/21/global-vaccine-effort-usaid-cash-500342>. 
###

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826

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