By the end of May, 2.1% of the African population will have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. To avoid the risk of a ‘vaccine apartheid’ feared by Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, we must bridge the gap between advanced economies and developing countries. It is morally right and it is also in everyone’s interest.
For this, multilateral action is needed at the global level, which allows to increase the production of vaccines and accelerate their spread all over the world. This has been the path chosen by the European Union since the beginning of the pandemic. And now it is also the path defined by G20 leaders at the World Health Summit held in Rome on 21 May.
The pandemic continues to claim thousands of lives every day. At the current rate, the entire world population will not be vaccinated until 2023. Still, large-scale vaccination is the only way to end the pandemic; otherwise, the multiplication of variants risks compromising the efficacy of existing vaccines.
Vaccination is also the prerequisite for lifting the restrictions that are holding our economies and freedoms in check. These restrictions penalize the whole world, but weigh even more in developing countries. Advanced countries can rely more on social safety nets and economic levers to limit the impact of the pandemic on their citizens.
If the vaccination gap persists, it would risk reversing the decline in poverty and inequality worldwide over the last few decades. This negative dynamic would hinder economic activity and increase geopolitical tensions. The cost of inaction would be much higher for advanced economies than we would have to collectively spend to vaccinate the entire world population. The EU therefore welcomes the $ 50 billion plan proposed by the International Monetary Fund to vaccinate 40% of the world‘s population in 2021 and 60% by mid-2022.
To achieve this, we need closely coordinated multilateral action. We must resist the threats of “vaccine diplomacy”, which links vaccine delivery to political goals, and “vaccine nationalism”, which pushes people to reserve vaccines for themselves. Unlike others, the EU has rejected both of these approaches since the start of the pandemic. So far we are the only global player to vaccinate its population and at the same time export large quantities of vaccines and contribute substantially to the spread of vaccines in low-income countries. Europeans can be proud of this record.
In 2020, the EU supported large-scale vaccine research and development and made a significant contribution to the new generation of mRna vaccines. Subsequently, it became a leading producer of Covid-19 vaccines with approximately 40% of doses worldwide, according to WHO data. The European Union has exported 240 million doses to 90 countries, roughly the same amount used to vaccinate EU citizens.
The Union, together with its Member States and its financial institutions (the so-called Team Europe) is also donating vaccines to neighboring countries that need them, particularly in the Western Balkans. The goal is to donate at least another 100 million doses to low- and middle-income countries by the end of 2021, as agreed at the last European Council. With 2.8 billion euros, Team Europe was also the main contributor to the Covax initiative, which allows poorer countries to access vaccines; around one third of the Covax doses distributed to date have been funded by the EU. However, this is still not enough to avert a widening vaccination gap.
* The author is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
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