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In reaction to Pfizer’s announcement of voluntary licenses of its COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid to the Medicines Patent Pool, People’s Vaccine Alliance spokesperson and Oxfam America’s Senior Advocacy Advisor, Robbie Silverman, said: “Pfizer’s announcement to voluntarily licence the COVID treatment Paxlovid is welcome but is far from enough."     

An article in the British Medical Journal and Die Welt, published today, has found that the KenUP Foundation - acting as a consultant on behalf of BioNTech – has been pushing South African manufacturers not to get involved the World Health Organization Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub’s project of copying the manufacturing process of existing mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and have been calling for the project to be ‘terminated immediately’. 

In reaction to the newly announced $10.3 billion UN Humanitarian Response Plan (UNHRP) appeal, Oxfam’s Head of Humanitarian Campaigns and Advocacy, Fionna Smyth, said: “We welcome this boost to the UN Covid-19 humanitarian appeal. Millions of people around the world already struggling to cope with crises brought about by conflict, poverty and climate change, have been hit even harder now by the coronavirus pandemic which has also fuelled a hunger crisis. This funding is lifesaving and urgently needed, yet less than a quarter of the previous appeal had been met."     

The United States government last night moved to support a waiver of intellectual property protections of the Covid-19 vaccine. The People’s Vaccine Alliance has been campaigning to suspend Covid-19 intellectual property protections and has this reaction: This is the decision the world needed: by backing a waiver of intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines the Biden Administration can increase the global supply of vaccines and deal a deathblow to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Oxfam India welcomes the US decision to back the waiver of intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines.  

A staggering new poll has revealed that support for higher taxes on wealth is popular with dollar millionaires from across G20 countries. It comes as 260 millionaires and billionaires have signed a new letter demanding world leaders increase their taxes, to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The polling is part of the “Proud to Pay More” report, published alongside the letter, which profiles some of the world’s wealthiest people on why they support higher taxes on themselves.

Vaccinating the poorest half of humanity —3.7 billion people— against coronavirus could cost less than what the ten biggest pharmaceutical companies make in four months, Oxfam said today. 

Ahead of shareholder meetings for the giant pharmaceutical corporations, the People’s Vaccine Alliance calculates that Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca have paid out $26 billion in dividends and stock buybacks to their shareholders in the past 12 months.

COVID-19 has pushed millions into poverty in East Africa, and worsened inequality. However, building back during and after the pandemic offers East African governments a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do what their citizens want: make their economic systems fairer by increasing taxes on wealthy and large corporations, boost public spending, and improving workers’ rights.

In advance of the UNSC Briefing on the crisis in Tigray, Oxfam in Ethiopia’s Country Director Gezahegn Kebede Gebrehana, said: “Days after the unilateral ceasefire was announced and as communities and global leaders grapple with the new context, millions of people across Tigray and surrounding areas remain in crisis. Even with the ceasefire, many vulnerable people are left without protection and resources, and need is only expected to grow."