COVID Vaccine Apartheid: How The Global North is Depriving the Third World of Vaccines

Nations of the developed world have always been the first to gain access to world-class healthcare facilities, new treatment options, new drugs, innovative post-operative facilities and vaccines.

At a time when the daily active cases and death rates in India have surpassed even some of the worst affected countries in the developing world, the rich countries—the US, Canada, UK, and the EU—have received more than 50% of the world’s vaccine doses, as reported by NewsClick.

The US alone has received 147 million vaccine jabs (up to 30 March 2021). This is more than 14 times what the entire continent of Africa—with four times the US population—has received. Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General, called the distribution of vaccines “grotesque” and a “catastrophic moral failure”. This is what is being called ‘vaccine apartheid’ at a global level. It is the intentional deprivation of vaccine supplies, patents and aid to the Global South for the purposes of profit by big pharma and Global North countries.

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