Equal Distribution of Covid 19 Vaccines - Special Emphasis on

Developing Countries

COMMITTEE OVERVIEW AND COUNCIL INTRODUCTION

● Introduction and History

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the UN office appointed with initiating global
public health efforts. In its seventy-year life, the WHO has logged several triumphs, for
example, eradicating smallpox, and perceived failures like its deferred response to the Ebola
outbreak in 2014.

Accordingly, the WHO has attempted changes to improve its capacity to battle future
pandemics and boost the wellbeing of the million individuals actually living in outrageous
poverty. Notwithstanding, a rigid bureaucracy and an undeniably troublesome spending plan
could impede reforms. In the interim, the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has arisen as a great
challenge for the health agency, starting new discussion over its effectiveness.

The agency is financed fundamentally from yearly contributions made by member

governments based on relative capacity to pay. Likewise, after 1951 WHO was designated
significant assets from the extended specialized help program of the United Nations.

● Mandate of WHO

Created in 1948 as part of the United Nations, the WHO has an expansive mandate to guide
and facilitate global health policy. Its primary exercises include creating and developing
partnerships with other worldwide health initiatives, conducting research, setting standards,
offering specialized help and support, and monitoring health patterns around the globe.
Throughout the long term, the WHO's transmit has extended from its original focus on
women’s and children’s health, sustenance, sanitation, and battling malaria and tuberculosis.

● What does the WHO do?

Today, the WHO monitors and arranges activities concerning numerous health-related issues,
including genetically modified foods, environmental change, tobacco and drug use, and street
security. The WHO is also an authority of standards and best practices. Since 1977, the
organization has maintained a list of fundamental medications it urges emergency clinics to
stock; it has since made a similar list of diagnostic tests. The organization likewise gives
guidance on needed clinical devices, for example, ventilators and X-ray and ultrasound
machines.
Some of the WHO's most commended successes incorporate its child immunization
programs, which added to the annihilation of smallpox in 1979 and a 99 percent decrease in
polio contaminations in ongoing many years, and its initiative during the 2003 severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic. The agency has the exclusive authority to pronounce
global health emergencies, which it has completed a few times since its members granted it
the power in 2007. As of now, the WHO's work incorporates battling emergencies, for
example, the pandemic of a new coronavirus disease known as COVID-19, and promoting
refugees' wellbeing.

In its 2019 strategy, the WHO recognized three priorities for its work over the course of the
following several years:

● providing health coverage to one billion additional individuals;

● shielding one billion more people from health emergencies like epidemics; and
● guaranteeing another one billion people enjoy better health and well-being, including
protection from non-irresistible diseases, for example, cancer.

The WHO's strategic priorities are established in the United Nations' Sustainable
Development Goals, a set of seventeen objectives for ending poverty by 2030.

● How is the WHO governed?

The WHO is settled in Geneva and has six local and 149 nation workplaces. It is controlled
by delegates from its 194 member states, who vote on policy and elect the director-general.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, previously Ethiopia's foreign minister, was chosen for a
five-year term in 2017. He is the WHO's first leader from Africa, and his election was the
first time all WHO countries had an equal vote.

WHO representatives set the organization's agenda and favor an aspirational budget every
year at the World Health Assembly. The director-general is responsible for raising a lot of
assets from benefactors.

Abbreviations
UN - United Nations
WHO - World Health Organization
SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC

● History or background of the topic

The introduction of the COVID-19 vаccine in developing countries is criticаl to protect
lives, build humаn cаpitаl, and spur economic recovery. The current crisis is exаcerbating
inequаlities аround the world, and without аccess to vаccines, the gаp will widen even
further.
Аs the roll out of coronаvirus (COVID-19) vаccines begins, this policy brief аsks how to
ensure vаccines for аll. In doing so, it examines the cаse for multilаterаl аpproаches to аccess
аnd delivery, mаps key chаllenges, and identifies priority аctions for policy mаkers. The
аbsence of а comprehensive аpproach to ensure vаccine аccess in developing countries
threаtens to prolong the pаndemic, escаlating inequаlities and delаying the global economic
recovery.
While new collaborative efforts such as ACT Accelerator and its COVAX initiative are
helping to bridge current gaps, these are not enough in circumstances where demand far
outstrips supply. Policy actions to support equitable vaccine access in developing
countries include:
➢ supporting multilateral frameworks for equitable allocation of vaccines and for crisis
response, resilience and prevention;
➢ highlighting the role of development finance;
➢ promoting context-driven solutions.

● Current condition
COVAX-Global COVID-19 Vaccine Availability Mechanism brings together 172 countries
and works on several promising vaccines. It is working for global equitable access to
COVID-19 vaccines and collaborates with Vaccine Manufacturers in Developed and
Developing Countries. COVAX has provided the world with the best way to ensure the
fastest, fairest introduction of safe and effective vaccines for all people at risk in every
country on the planet.
Developing a vaccine against COVID-19 is the most pressing challenge of our time - and
nobody wins the race until everyone wins. The global pandemic has already caused the loss
of hundreds of thousands of lives and disrupted the lives of billions more. As well as
reducing the tragic loss of life and helping to get the pandemic under control, introduction of
a vaccine will prevent the loss of US$ 375 billion to the global economy every month.
Global equitable access to a vaccine, particularly protecting health care workers and those
most-at-risk is the only way to mitigate the public health and economic impact of the
pandemic.
This race cannot end with a minority victory, and the COVAX mechanism plays an
important role in this, ensuring access of all countries to the world's largest portfolio
of candidate vaccines, as well as a balanced and equitable distribution of vaccination
doses.
AstraZeneca is the only pharmaceutical firm to choose not to benefit from the production
of COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. The company has made a significant
contribution to ensuring equitable access to vaccines around the world by "licensing its
technology to other companies."

● Problem identification
According to the head of the WHO, the unfair distribution of COVID-19 vaccines between
rich and poor countries is a moral disaster. Experts warn that vaccine deficiency in poor
countries could trigger more dangerous coronavirus pathogens. As the first vaccines are
deployed, the hope of equal access is seriously jeopardized. To date, 39 million doses of
various vaccines have been distributed to the 49 richest countries, while one of the lowest
income countries has received only 25 doses. The unequal distribution of vaccines in the
world "is not only a moral insult," but also a path leading to "self-destruction" in economic
and epidemiological terms. The gap in the number of coronavirus vaccinations in rich
countries and states receiving the vaccine through the international COVAX mechanism is
widening day by day.
Another danger is the fact that poor countries receive cheaper vaccines with low efficacy.
According to London-based research firm Airfinity, the richest countries have supplied
themselves with 100% of the American Moderna vaccine and 85% of the vaccines from
Pfizer (USA) and BioNTech (Germany). And most of humanity will have to rely on the
cheaper and easier-to-deliver British AstraZeneca and drugs from other manufacturers,
including the Chinese Sinovac. But if the effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna
vaccines reaches 95%, then the drug AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford showed an
average level of effectiveness in Australia of 70%, and the effectiveness of CoronaVac in
Brazil was 50.4%. Distribution of less effective vaccines in emerging markets could have
significant economic implications and exacerbate differences in the impact of the pandemic
between countries. Equitable access to COVID-19 vaccine is key to defeating the virus and a
prerequisite for recovery from a pandemic.

● Past actions
The WHO chief has called on the richest countries that have already pre-ordered millions
of doses of coronavirus vaccine, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the
EU, to share some of the doses left over from vaccinating their healthcare workers and
older populations with COVAX (a global initiative to ensure
equitable access to vaccines).
Ensuring equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the current environment could
pose a major challenge. There are means to prevent this failure, but it is shocking how little
has been done to prevent it. The gap between vaccinations in rich countries and
[vaccinations] through COVAX is growing and becoming more grotesque every day.
Equal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines will prevent 61% of coronavirus-related deaths,
according to a study by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. If only the richest countries
get the vaccine, only 33% of deaths could be prevented. On the eve of The Guardian
reported that nine out of ten residents of 70 poor countries are unlikely to receive the
coronavirus vaccine next year, since Western countries have already bought most of the
most promising drugs.
14% of the world's population who live in developed countries, have already secured the
most reliable coronavirus vaccines. For instance, Western countries bought 96% of Pfizer's
vaccines. The Moderna vaccine will also only be available to residents of developed
countries, and the prices for both vaccines are high. They also need to be stored at very low
temperatures. AstraZeneca, by contrast, intends to ship 64% of vaccine doses to developing
countries.
AstraZeneca is 79% effective in preventing "symptomatic COVID-19 disease" and is 100%
effective in preventing hospitalization and death. There were no reported safety concerns
during these tests.

● Bloc positions
Earlier, as a precautionary measure, a number of countries suspended the use of the
AstraZeneca vaccine due to reports of blood clots in large vessels in the presence of blood
clotting disorders in those vaccinated. The company reassured the vaccine's safety, stressing
that its findings are based on a study of the health status of more than 17 million people
vaccinated in the European Union and the United Kingdom. The EU regulator on March 18
recognized the AstraZeneca vaccine as safe and effective. The WHO Vaccine Safety
Advisory Committee also concluded that the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks. After
that, several countries, including Italy, Germany and France, began to use the vaccine again.
Despite these advances, inequalities in access to vaccines are widening every day.
High-income countries, home to 16% of the world's population, account for more than half
of confirmed vaccine orders, or about 4.6 billion doses, in some cases several times the
number required to fully vaccinate a population. The poorest developing countries, with
twice the population, have more than half the confirmed orders. Current shipments to
sub-Saharan Africa cover less than 1% of the population. While wealthy countries immunize
younger and healthier populations, health workers in
Mozambique, Nepal and Bolivia are fighting the pandemic without protection, leaving lives
dead.

● Case studies
The gap in the distribution of vaccines highlights a gross injustice. While the G7 countries
are on track to achieve 70% coverage by the end of 2021, some of the poorest countries on
current trends will not reach that level until 2024. Leaving the world's poor countries behind
in the race to vaccinate against COVID-19 is a catastrophic moral failure. It is also an act of
destructive self-harm. As the coronavirus spreads and mutates among unimmunized
populations, it will pose a public health threat to people around the world, including in the
richest countries. There is a huge ethical, epidemiological and economic rationale behind
the need for urgent collective action to achieve equity in vaccine distribution.
WHO attaches great importance to the COVAX mechanism, which involves 190 countries
and economies. Under the terms of the program, countries with high per capita incomes pay
for the purchase of vaccines for countries with lower incomes. According to the plans, within
the framework of the mechanism, by the end of 2021, 2 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines
should be produced and evenly distributed around the world.

● Questions A Resolution Must Answer(3-4)

These questions will be used as the goal-setting for the committee in understanding the
topic, however, please do not limit your research only to this study guide.
1. Why Covid-19 vaccination in poorer nations slowed, posing global risks? What are the
main reasons?
2. How long does it take to solve the problem of unequal distribution? Then how will the
vaccines be shared around the world?
3. What are global solutions to the problem of Covid-19 vaccine distribution?
4. How can the government and other organizations raise awareness on unequal
distribution of vaccines in the world, especially in developing countries?
5. What new solutions can be taken by governments in order to prevent the nations from
deficit of vaccines?
6. How can governments ensure fair access to the COVID-19 vaccines to
developing countries?