A FEW Leaders ago, this newspaper brought the happy news of some 140 world leaders rallying for a people's vaccine, a free vaccine everywhere, for everyone. Sadly, it is not going to happen at the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which began its two-day meeting yesterday. According to English newspaper The Guardian, the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are standing in the way of the people's vaccine by opposing any push for open licensing.
Health policy manager Anna Marriott of Oxfam, one of the non-governmental organisations that coordinated the open letter for the people's vaccine, told the newspaper that the three countries are standing on the wrong side of history. We should not be surprised. The US and UK, if not Switzerland, have been wrong so long that they think they are right. This is yet another reason why the peddling of democracy and human rights by the US and the UK is a sham. This is shameful and selfish. As this Leader went to press, there were 4.7 million cases and more than 315,000 deaths worldwide. And as countries around the world ease up on their lockdowns, more cases are being reported. What's worse, WHO on Wednesday warned that Covid-19 may never go away. Isn't this reason enough for open licensing of drugs and vaccines?
The trio is being foolish, too. Let's not forget that Covid-19 grows exponentially. Just leaving out one person will mean a disaster for the world that has become a global village. Numbers speak of this danger. There are 7.7 billion people in the world and the population is growing at 81 million people a year. Of this, The Hunger Project says, 736 million live under extreme poverty, meaning they survive on less than RM8 a day. That is more than twice the population of the US, 11 times the population of the UK or 85 times the population of Switzerland living on less than US$1.90 per day. How could the extremely poor pay for patented drugs and vaccines when they can't even feed themselves? The 195 member countries in the WHA — minus the US, the UK and Switzerland — must not allow this appalling cruelty of the few to cow the many.
This is happening at an inopportune time for the world health body when the US is accusing WHO of being China-friendly. It is unfortunate that the bat-or-lab spat between the US and China has spilled over to a resolution on how to contain Covid-19. The leaders of the two countries must know that their rivalry helps, not hinders, the spread of coronavirus, by placing hurdles along the path of WHO. US President Donald Trump is also making it hard for WHO by withholding funds, which The Economist calculates to be US$400 million. In a world of low cash, this is really big money. Crippling WHO means incapacitating the US, the UK and Switzerland too as its gains are theirs as well. Cutting off the nose to spite the face is the work of a desperate man. Desperation is bad, in geopolitics and health. The US, the UK, Switzerland and those who are in cahoots with them must realise this: all lives matter. If human rights means anything to them, they will not reserve the drugs and vaccines for only the rich. A vote against people's vaccine is a vote for some lives, not all.