According to World Health Organisation as of March 3, 2021, COVID-19 had infected more than 114 million people and killed more than 2.5 million in the world. Each day these numbers are increasing. The right to health belongs to every person, regardless of who they are, where they live, or how much money they have. Now that a COVID-19 vaccine has been developed, it must be available to all people. In all countries. Free of charge. It must be a People's Vaccine.
Inequality and poverty are depriving people in the race to roll out COVID-19 vaccination, mostly in middle and low-income countries. It cannot be business as usual, with a for-profit approach. "A COVID-19 vaccine must be seen as a global public good, a people's vaccine," said the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the June 4, 2020, Global Vaccine Summit. The key message shared by Guterres is at the center of the growing need to make the COVID-19 vaccine free for all.
Humana People to People, of which Planet Aid is a member, has joined The People's Vaccine Alliance, a growing movement calling for COVID-19 vaccine to be for the public good and not for profit. The People's Vaccine Alliance is a coalition of organizations including Amnesty International, Free the Vaccine, Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, Public Citizen, SumOfUs, Tearfund, UNAIDS, and the Yunus Centre. We support the People's Vaccine Alliance in compelling first-world governments and big pharmaceutical companies to provide COVID-19 vaccines free of charge to everyone.
The solidarity shared among progressive health and humanitarian organizations, past and present world leaders, health experts, faith leaders, and economists urges safe and effective vaccine development, rapid production at scale, and availability. This will only be possible via a transformation in how vaccines are produced and distributed — pharmaceutical corporations must allow the COVID-19 vaccines to be produced as widely as possible by sharing their knowledge free from patents.