Publication

Title: Save lives in the next pandemic: ensure vaccine equity now
Authors: Carlson C, Becker D, Happi C, O'Donoghue Z, de Oliveira T, Oyola SO, Poisot T, Seifert S, Phelan A.
Journal: Nature,626(8001):952-953. doi: 10.1038/d41586-024-00545-3: (2024)

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Abstract

The proposed Pandemic Agreement must ensure that COVID-19 vaccine nationalism is never repeated; 290 scientists call for action. Since 2022, member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) have been negotiating a new treaty — provisionally termed the Pandemic Agreement. If adopted, it would transform how the world handles pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Opinions differ on what negotiators should prioritize. But no issue has captivated public attention as much as vaccine equity — or done more to bring countries to the negotiating table.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists began to design vaccine candidates only a few hours after the first SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence was shared. By the end of 2020, mass vaccination had begun in the United States and Europe. High-income countries promised to share vaccines through the voluntary WHO COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) programme, but failed to meet their commitments. When South Africa and India appealed to the World Trade Organization for an emergency waiver of intellectual-property rights related to COVID-19 vaccines, so that every country could start their own manufacturing, high-income countries blocked the proposal for months. The refusal of wealthier nations to cooperate had cost between 200,000 and 1.3 million lives by the end of 2021 in low- and middle-income countries1,2. Today, nearly one-third of the world’s population has still not received a single dose, and the death toll resulting from vaccine nationalism continues to grow.

The Pandemic Agreement could be the last chance to fix this problem before the next COVID-19 arrives. Yet the proposed solution — the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System, which was outlined in Article 12 of the latest treaty draft — still hangs in the balance. The second-to-last session of the treaty’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body is now under way. So far, countries have been unable to agree on this part of the text. As time runs out, we urge WHO member states to agree on a ‘science-for-science’ mechanism that ensures vaccine equity in the next pandemic.

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Citation: Carlson C, Becker D, Happi C, O'Donoghue Z, de Oliveira T, Oyola SO, Poisot T, Seifert S, Phelan A. Save lives in the next pandemic: ensure vaccine equity now Nature,626(8001):952-953. doi: 10.1038/d41586-024-00545-3: (2024).