Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) appreciates the efforts that have been made by WHO and its member states in combating the pandemic but reiterates the challenges in achieving universal equitable access to COVID-19 medicines, vaccines and diagnostics.
Resolution WHA73.1 affirms the importance of ensuring humanitarian assistance during the pandemic. Refugees, asylum seekers, marginalised populations, and people living in conflict areas often have the least access to, or are excluded from, national health services and therefore require specific mechanisms to ensure access to COVID-19 countermeasures, in particular vaccines. To this end, we welcome the intention to develop a humanitarian vaccine buffer under the WHO Global Equitable Allocation Framework. However, it is still unclear how large this buffer will be; how this will be operationalised; and whether this will be the only humanitarian mechanism to ensure access to future COVID-19 vaccines for these contexts. We therefore urgently call on the WHO secretariat to implement an effective mechanism to secure timely and sufficient access to effective and quality-assured future COVID-19 vaccines for these neglected populations.
Second, despite resolution WHA73.1 explicitly urging WHO and its member states to adopt measures to overcome intellectual property barriers and to facilitate sufficient manufacture and supply of effective COVID-19 medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, little has been achieved. Instead of having enforceable mechanisms, WHO, member states and the implementing institutions of the WHO’s ACT-A continue to rely on voluntary contributions of the pharmaceutical industry, which refuses to offer non-exclusive licenses with worldwide coverage to facilitate global access. Instead, we have witnessed the ‘business-as-usual’ practice of pharmaceutical corporations pursuing secretive and monopolistic business agreements, perpetuating inequalities and inequities in access.
We urge WHO and its member states to prioritise resolving the issues above and look forward to the full implementation of resolution WHA73.1.
