Doha Forum Discusses Vaccine Inequity

Mark Suzman CEO of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Vaccine inequity poses threats to vulnerable communities and the global community, as discussed at yesterday's Doha Forum.

Panellists of ‘Vaccine Distribution: Collaborative Solutions for an Equitable System’ discussed the reasons and consequences of vaccine inequity. The discussion also focused on distribution challanges, misinformation campaigns, and a number of factors contrbuting to vaccine inequity.

CEO of World Innovation Summit for Health, Sultana Afdhal said that: “Failure of vaccine equity has humanitarian consequences. Supply of vaccines, supporting communities with training, vaccination campaigns and fighting misinformation are all components of vaccine equity. Failure of equity and access has terrible humanitarian, economic and biological consequences".

The discussion pointed out that global vaccination rates continue to rise, the gap between developed and developing nations remains sharp.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 7 billion doses have been administered globally, while a small percentage of those jabs have gone to people in poorer countries.

Carl Bildt Co-Chair of European Council on Foreign Relation and Former Prime Minister of Sweden mentioned that: “The pandemic has provided us with a success of science and a failure of politics that’s left us with vast vaccine inequity”.

The discussion was moderated by International Vaccine Institute, Jerome Kim where he stated that: “The cost benefit of vaccinating populations is remarkable. We need to be better at convincing ministers of finance that this is the case.”

Mark Suzman, Chief Executive Officer at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said: “Health inequity is not new. There was a vision early on to make COVID-19 the first global health crisis dealt with equitably. We can now say that vision has failed.”

“The danger of new variants is acute. We need to be careful how we calibrate. We need to be certain that there will be no more outbreaks,” he further added.