Vaccine throws up glaring rich-poor divide

The call from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to wealthy countries not to hoard surplus COVID-19 vaccine supplies merits mention. Ramaphosa has also urged that global productions should be shared more equally.

Africa has been struggling to secure sufficient vaccines to start countrywide inoculation programmes for its 1.3 billion people.

Nations have a “shrinking window of opportunity” to build a fair, green recovery, according to “The Inequality Virus” report.

“We stand to witness the greatest rise in inequality since records began,” Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, said in a statement as the charity called for higher wealth taxes and stronger protection for workers.

“Rigged economies are funnelling wealth to a rich elite who are riding out the pandemic in luxury, while those on the frontline of the pandemic — shop assistants, healthcare workers, and market vendors — are struggling to pay the bills.”

 COVID-19 has unleashed an economic tempest that has hit the poor and vulnerable hardest, with women and marginalised workers facing the worst of job losses and the World Bank warning more than 100 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty.

Ramaphosa, who chairs the African Union and whose nation has recorded nearly half the continent’s coronavirus deaths, said the world needed those who had hoarded doses to release them for others to use.

“The rich countries of the world went out and acquired large doses,” he told a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). “Some even acquired up to four times what their population needs ... to the exclusion of other countries.”

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week described this unequal access as a “catastrophic moral failure”.

The African Union this month secured 270 million shots for the continent to supplement 600 million doses from the COVAX vaccine distribution scheme co-led by the WHO and Gavi. Those doses are expected to become available this year but none have arrived yet, while parts of Europe, Asia and the Americas are well into their vaccination programmes.

Britain has ordered 367 million doses of seven different vaccines – some already approved and some candidate drugs – for its population of roughly 67 million, while the European Union has secured nearly 2.3 billion doses for its 450 million people.

Richer countries had ordered more than 800 million surplus doses and had options for a further 1.4 billion. Little wonder then that the head of the World Health Organisation said there is a “clear problem” that low- and middle-income countries are not yet receiving supplies of COVID-19 vaccines and urged countries to stop striking bilateral deals with manufacturers.

“No country is exceptional and should cut the queue and vaccinate all their population while some remain with no supply of the vaccine,” he added.

The coronavirus pandemic has made poverty in the Third World all the more stark. Sub Saharan Africa has the highest concentration of those living on less than $1.90 a day, and could see an increase of over 50 million people by 2021 compared to pre-coronavirus estimates. About 42 per cent of the region’s population could be living under extreme poverty by 2021 versus a pre-COVID estimate of 37.8 per cent, the study showed. Women are at more risk than men, as they are more likely to work in the informal economy with little or no employment rights.

The COVID-19 crisis could now reduce income for the poorest 40 per cent, increasing income inequality and reducing social mobility.

To get back on a track of poverty reduction, countries will need collective action to control the virus, provide support for households and build more resilient economies once the pandemic subsides, the World Bank said.