LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2020) London-based organization Global Justice Now has warned that by securing millions of doses of potential COVID-19 vaccines in advance, the UK government is fueling vaccine nationalism, and eventually threatening fair global distribution of the drug.
"By locking in advanced deals, the [UK] government is contributing to a dangerous trend of vaccine nationalism by richer nations," the organization said in a statement posted on its website after the government boasted on Friday to have secured early access to another 90 million doses of two promising vaccine candidates.
According to Global Justice Now, which campaigns for a more just and equal world, "these bilateral deals will reduce the initial global vaccine stocks available for vulnerable groups in poorer countries and undermine global efforts to ensure fair allocation."
In the statement, Heidi Chow, senior campaigns coordinator, encourages the government to work with other countries, in order to guarantee that all vulnerable groups can be immunized against the novel coronavirus no matter where they live.
"The fastest way to end this pandemic is through global collaboration," she added, as quoted by her organization.
The two new vaccine contracts announced on Friday by the UK government were stroke separately with US pharmaceuticals Novavax and Janssen Pharmaceutica, a division of Johnson & Johnson multinational, for 60 million doses and 30 million doses, respectively.
These agreements add to other four the UK has already signed with Oxford/AstraZeneca, BioNTech/Pfizer, Valneva and GSK/Sanofi for the acquisition of their vaccine candidates, taking the country's total potential stockpile to 340 million doses, for a population of 66 million people.
