Vaccine Supply for People in Low-income Countries

That the Parliament expresses its concern at analysis published by the People’s Vaccine Alliance, which reports that nine out of 10 people in 67 low-income countries are unlikely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in 2021; understands that the data shows that rich nations, representing just 14% of the world’s population, have bought-up 53% of all the most promising vaccines so far; believes that, so far, all of Moderna’s doses and 96% of Pfizer/BioNTech’s have been acquired by rich countries; further believes that Oxford/AstraZeneca has pledged to provide 64% of their doses to people in developing nations but that, despite their actions to scale-up supply, they can still only reach 18% of the world’s population next year at most; acknowledges that the organisations that produced the analysis, including Amnesty International, Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now and Oxfam, used data collected by a science information and analytics company to analyse the deals made between countries and the eight leading vaccine candidates; understands that they found that five of the 67 countries, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Ukraine, have reported nearly 1.5 million COVID-19 cases between them; considers that no-one should be prevented from accessing a life-saving vaccine because of the country they live in; expresses its concern that billions of people around the world may not receive a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 for years to come; considers that all pharmaceutical corporations working on COVID-19 vaccines should openly share their technology and intellectual property through the World Health Organization COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, so that billions more doses can be manufactured and that safe and effective vaccines can be available to all who need them, and calls on the Scottish Government to use its influence to ensure that the pharmaceutical industry puts people’s lives before profits.