Pushing for wider access to vaccines via intellectual property waiver

EVENTS over the past few months have highlighted the difficulties that developing and least developed countries face in securing enough supply of Covid-19 vaccines for their population.

As wealthy countries have been making deals directly with manufacturers since the second half of last year and procured large quantities of vaccines, it is no surprise that 45% of all doses have been administered in high-income countries as of late April 2021. Statistically, this represents 16% of the world’s population (Mirza, A & Rauhala, E; "Here’s just how unequal the global coronavirus vaccine rollout has been", The Washington Post, April 22,2021).