The United States is now in favor of lifting intellectual property rights on vaccines against the new coronavirus, a decision that won European support, to great relief in Africa.
Africa by all indications is badly engaged in the vaccine race.
To date, according to the African Union Centre for Disease Control (CDC), 1.14 percent of the continent’s population has received the first dose of one of the vaccines on the market.
0.37 percent took the second dose.
For a little over a billion people, this is ridiculous.
The call by the United States for the democratization of vaccines therefore sounds like deliverance.
“This is a global health crisis and the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for (exceptional) action,” Katherine Tai, the US Trade Representative recently said.
The world’s leading power is convinced that its strategy will help “accelerate global production” of vaccines at a time when the various producing laboratories are crumbling under orders.
Through the voice of Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, the Old Continent is committed “to discussing any proposal which responds to the crisis in an efficient and pragmatic manner.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Ethiopian Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said “this is a monumental moment in the fight against Covid-19.”
It remains to be seen, however, whether the laboratories, which have spent fortunes to expressly develop vaccines, will give up their intellectual property rights in the cause of ending this pandemic.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) should be called upon to facilitate consensus on practical modalities.
Covid-19 has already caused the death of 3.2 million people worldwide out of 156 million confirmed cases.
Uncle Sam is the hardest hit with 33 million infections and more than 594,000 deaths.
In Africa, South Africa is paying the heaviest price with 1.5 million infections resulting in the death of 54,620 people.
ID/fss/abj/APA