Omicron: Leading philanthropies blame vaccine inequality

As concerns mount over the threat of the Omicron COVID-19 variant spreading, the Global Alliance of world’s leading philanthropies have decried that failure to distribute vaccines equitably is causing the virus to mutate and become more dangerous, warning that more variants, pandemics may emerge.

The group said the new variant has come about because the world is failing to meet the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 40 percent of every country’s population by the end of 2021, adding that less than 7 percent of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated, but the global death toll has exceeded five million and continues to climb.

The statement, signed by Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation; James Holt, Executive Director, Archewell Foundation; Kate Hampton, CEO, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation; Peter Laugharn, President, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation; Boichoko Ditlhake, Head, Civil Society Support, Kagiso Trust; Mo Ibrahim, Founder and Chair, Mo Ibrahim Foundation; Mark Malloch-Brown, President, Open Society Foundations and Rajiv J. Shah, President, The Rockefeller Foundation.

“The longer the world takes to deliver vaccine equity, the more we allow COVID-19 to mutate and become more dangerous. This new variant demonstrates that vaccine nationalism is a short-sighted approach that is self-defeating and puts us all at risk. It reinforces the reality, once again, that no one is safe until everyone is safe,” the a Alliance warned.

The Alliance called on G7 countries and multinational pharmaceutical companies to urgently lift their restrictions on vaccine supply. The Alliance also called on G7 countries under the U.K. and incoming German leadership to make good on earlier commitments and aim even higher to ensure that countries in the Global South have the means to buy, administer, and quickly produce their own vaccines.

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“We also urge countries to refrain from imposing unreasonable travel bans that penalise countries that shared early warnings about this new variant in the name of global health security.”

While the world awaits more information on whether existing vaccines will be effective against the new variant, the Alliance stated that the new variant will cause additional pressure on vaccine supplies, and tasked global leaders to do everything in their power to accelerate sharing of intellectual property and technology transfer to allow additional manufacturers to reproduce COVID-19 vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.

The Alliance equally wants countries with excess doses to stop hoarding and donate those supplies urgently, and to continue to donate future excesses in real-time. It said donations to COVAX, African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) must be made in a way that allows their governments to mobilise their resources in support of equitable distribution and enables both short- and long-term planning.

“COVID-19 is not a one-off emergency. This variant will be followed by others, and by new pandemics. This brings home the need for structural global pandemic preparedness and response; effective surveillance and global early warning systems for emerging diseases and new variants; an upscale in local systems’ delivery capacity; medicines manufacturing capacity taken out of the hands of the few and expanded to each continent; global responses based on solidarity, equity, and the understanding of mutual interest; and adequate financing to support all countries in effective response.