Vaccine access ‘shouldn’t depend on how much money you have’

Wealthy nations representing just 13 percent of the world’s population have already cornered more than half of the promised doses of leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates, Oxfam has warned.

Oxfam and other organizations across the world are calling for the vaccine to be available to everyone, free of charge and distributed fairly based on need.

Big pharma is racing to produce an effective jab to counter the virus that has now killed more than 935,000 people around the world and infected almost 30 million.

“Access to a life-saving vaccine shouldn’t depend on where you live or how much money you have,” said Robert Silverman of Oxfam America.

“Covid-19 anywhere is Covid-19 everywhere.”

The five leading vaccine candidates currently in late-stage trials will be able to supply 5.9 billion doses, enough to inoculate about three billion people, the Oxfam report said.

Some 51 percent of those jabs have been snapped up by the wealthy world, including the US, Britain, the EU, Australia, Hong Kong and Macau, Japan, Switzerland and Israel.

The remaining 2.6 billion have been bought by or promised to developing countries including India, Bangladesh, China, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen earlier warned against “vaccine nationalism” that she said could put lives at risk by depriving the most vulnerable in poorer nations of immunity.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would begin rolling out a vaccine in America as soon as next month.