<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/12/04/omicron-shows-why-its-critical-to-share-vaccines-with-low-income-countries/?outputType=amp" class="">https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/12/04/omicron-shows-why-its-critical-to-share-vaccines-with-low-income-countries/?outputType=amp</a></div><div class=""><div class="news-header__main text-gray-800">
<h1 class="primaryBold primaryBold-60 md_primaryBold-80 dmnc_generic-header-header-module__2w2Yl mb-2"><span class="mr-7 dmnc_generic-header-header-module__3xVjy">Omicron shows why it’s critical to share COVID vaccines with low-income countries</span></h1><h2 class="secondaryRoman-30 text-gray-dark md_secondaryRoman-40 dmnc_generic-header-header-module__3wgXU secondaryRoman">No one is protected from COVID-19 until everyone is protected.</h2></div></div><div class="dmnc_chains-article-top-article-top-module__2H7Oc flex-grow lg-down_w-full"><div class="text-gray-medium app_byline_byline__aOoF8 secondaryRoman secondaryRoman-10"><p class=""><span class=""><i class="">By Adi Radhakrishnan and Kyle Knight</i></span></p><p class=""><i class="">1:30 AM on Dec 4, 2021 CST</i></p></div></div><p class="">The World Health Organization’s declaration that omicron is a
“Variant of Concern” delivers another stark reminder that severely
unequal access to COVID-19 vaccines poses grave danger to the world’s
population.</p><p class="">The pandemic has laid bare the dangers of having manufacturing
capacity for life-saving vaccines concentrated in a few countries where
governments have refused to prioritize and mandate sharing intellectual
property and technology for rapid diversified and global production. As
scientists scramble to determine if omicron introduces additional
dangers over other variants, its specter reflects policy failures as
some wealthy-country governments and pharmaceutical companies are
undermining rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutic
drugs and tests.</p><p class="">Wealthy countries have been blocking an intellectual property waiver
at the World Trade Organization and concentrating vaccine production in
the U.S. and Europe. This has prolonged devastating cycles of COVID-19
surges, deaths, travel restrictions and lockdowns, allowing the virus to
mutate and spread.</p><p class="">For over a year, the governments of South Africa and India have led <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/india-south-african-ministers-discussed-plans-for-trips-waiver-push/article37726291.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">efforts</a> at
the WTO to promote more equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and
therapeutics by waiving some provisions of the Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The
approval of a <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/pharmpatent_e.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">TRIPS waiver</a> would
temporarily suspend certain intellectual property and global trade
rules for health products needed for the COVID-19 response.</p><p class="">However, some wealthy and powerful states such as the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/omicron-outbreak-eu-vaccine-access-southern-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">European Union</a>,
the United Kingdom, and Switzerland have repeatedly blocked a temporary
waiver, inhibiting the widespread manufacturing and distribution of
Covid-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. The <a href="https://data.undp.org/vaccine-equity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">result</a> is
that, according to UN data, while nearly 65% of the people in
high-income countries are vaccinated, just 8% in poor countries are.
According to the World Health Organization, every day there are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/12/world/covid-vaccine-boosters-mandates/a-scandal-who-says-the-rate-of-boosters-outstrips-some-poor-countries-vaccinations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">six times more boosters</a> being administered globally than first doses in low-income countries.</p><p class="">The waiver would enable countries to collaborate with one another to
scale-up production of vaccines and other health products without
fearing trade-based retaliation. Negotiations on the waiver were slated
to continue in late November and early December at the WTO ministerial
conference, but the agency postponed the conference because of omicron
concerns for traveling representatives. World leaders should continue
working for swift adoption of the waiver proposal.</p><p class="">As a result of the failure of wealthy nations to share access to
vaccines, COVID-19 is continuing to cause severe illness and death that
vaccines could have prevented. As <a href="https://www.hrw.org/tag/coronavirus" class="">documented</a> by
Human Rights Watch and others, the social and economic consequences of
the pandemic have been widespread and devastating, particularly for
health care workers, marginalized populations, and people living in
poverty.</p><p class="">The U.S.-based companies Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson
quickly developed lifesaving vaccines with substantial support from the
U.S. government; approximately $1 billion in public funds each to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/24/fact-check-donations-research-grants-helped-fund-moderna-vaccine/6398486002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">Moderna</a> and <a href="https://www.keionline.org/35793" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">J&J</a> for
COVID-19 vaccine research and development. The U.S. National Institutes
of Health funded foundational innovations that made Moderna’s and
BioNTech-Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccines possible. But these companies <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/09/new-report-shows-leading-covid-19-vaccine-pharma-companies-fuelling-unprecedented-human-rights-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">haven’t shared their technology</a> with
the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool or mRNA
Technology Transfer Hub, limiting the ability of companies in other
parts of the world to produce more vaccines for the global response.</p><p class="">The disparities in vaccine availability and access reflect a failure
to ensure that international human rights standards guide the global
strategy for an <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/03/04/future-choices/charting-equitable-exit-covid-19-pandemic" class="">equitable exit</a> from this global public health emergency. Governments have a <a href="https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Human-Rights-Obligations-States-Proposed-COVID-19-TRIPS-Waiver.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">collective</a> responsibility
to take steps to prevent threats to public health and ensure access to
medical care for those who need it, and to cooperate to share the
benefits of science.</p><p class="">All governments should work to enact a temporary waiver of
intellectual property rights. Until vaccines and therapeutics are
distributed equitably, the end of the COVID-19 pandemic will be, as a
coalition of nursing unions said last week, <a href="https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/nurses-from-28-countries-file-un-complaint-alleging-human-rights-violations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">nowhere in sight</a>.</p><p class="">It is unconscionable that wealthy nations are reducing lifesaving health care to a tradeable commodity and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/14/sharing-knowledge-technology-critical-curb-covid-19" class="">using their power at the WTO</a> to
make human health subservient to pharmaceutical industry and trade
interests. A powerful minority of governments has cynically prioritized
their own and domestic companies’ economic interests while global
infections and deaths soar.</p><p class="">And as case counts spike everywhere — again — it’s a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/04/reinforcing-rights-can-help-avert-failure-covid-19-vaccines" class="">reminder</a> that no country’s people or economy can be fully protected from a deadly infectious disease until all people are protected.</p><div class=""><i class="">Adi Radhakrishnan is a research fellow and Kyle Knight is a senior
researcher at Human Rights Watch. They wrote this column for The Dallas
Morning News.</i></div><div class=""><i class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class="">
Arthur Stamoulis<br class="">Citizens Trade Campaign<br class="">(202) 494-8826<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class="">
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