More than a hundred Canadian policy and fitness experts say the federal government has succumbed to “vaccine nationalism” because it purchased tens of millions of doses of vaccines from personal companies in advance.
They also criticize the government for not yet offering money to a foreign fund to help poor countries obtain a COVID-19 vaccine: the COVAX Facility, as it is called, which aims to distribute two billion doses equally to them until the end of next year. .
COVAX aims to avoid an avalanche of individual countries to download vaccines for their own populations, by purchasing advance doses directly from pharmaceutical companies.
The Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research and the Canadian Society for International Health, the main teams in a letter released today, say Canada is doing just that because it has signed agreements to acquire tens of millions of vaccines from at least 4 foreigners. biotechnology companies.
A spokeswoman for Karina Gould, Canada’s Minister for International Development, said Canada makes plans as a contribution to COVAX until the September 18 deadline.
Gould, like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has continually said that Canada must ensure that poorer countries have equitable access to a cure imaginable for the COVID-19 pandemic, because the new coronavirus can only be eliminated if eliminated everywhere.
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The government also stated that it will have to fulfill the wishes of Canada’s vaccines and help distribute pandemic cure to other regions.
But today’s letter from a variety of fitness professionals, academics, policy advocates, and Americans criticizes the government for its personal early-procurement agreements, saying they undermine the effort to distribute a possible vaccine.
“The good luck of this plan is now at risk due to the behavior of many richer countries, and Canada, which is lately maneuvering to get vaccines for its own citizens, a phenomenon known as ‘vaccine nationalism,’ the letter says.
“Agreements are reached with leading brands before testing and in a climate of monetary secrecy to acquire materials from a limited and important resource. Transmitted by the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, countries have already reserved more than two billion doses, necessarily paralyzing the source of vaccines for other countries until the end of 2021. »
The letter states that Canada has committed to joining COVAX and has already pledged $120 million for the COVID-19 Tool Accelerator (ACT), which is connected to COVAX.
Earlier this year, Canada renewed its commitment to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, promising $600 million.
For more than 20 years, GAVI has been the leading foreign vaccine distribution organization in less evolved countries.
The COVAX facility is a vaccine exchange alliance from more than countries connected to the World Health Organization.
The plan would also provide interested countries with vaccines that would protect 20% of their own population.