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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."     

Refugees living in camps are sharing one tap between up to 250 people and many have less than3.5 square meters of living space per person which will make it extremely difficult to contain the coronavirus outbreak, Oxfam said today.

Nearly 90% of Somalia is now in a severe drought, following three consecutive failed rain seasons. Some areas facing their driest season in 40 years. Nearly 3.5 million people are already acutely food insecure and millions more are now at risk of going hungry by the beginning of next year.

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. 

Comment ahead of the Vaccine Alliance pledging conference tomorrow (4 June) that is expected to raise at least US$ 7.4 billion to support the roll out of vaccination programs across the developing world, and establish a new fund to help developing countries buy and distribute a coronavirus vaccine.

“Today’s lack of progress on debt relief is as irresponsible as it is underwhelming. Merely encouraging private sector creditors and multilateral banks to participate in the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) is woefully inadequate and a dereliction of duty. The G20 is in denial of the scale of response needed to address the worse global crisis in a century," said Jaime Atienza, Oxfam International’s Debt Policy Lead, in response to the communiqué of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting.

Coronavirus is threatening us all. With each day, in every family, community and country, more of us are being personally affected by it. To beat the pandemic and avert harm to the lives of billions we must work together. We need to act across all countries and for every person. Fighting for some but not others is not an option. It only fuels risk for us all.

We need to transform our economies to deliver universal health, education and other public services. To make this possible, the richest people and corporations should pay their fair share of tax. This will drive a dramatic reduction in the gap between rich and poor and between women and men.

In its proposed new Renewable Energy Directive, the European Commission has given in to the pressure of the biofuel industry lobby at the expense of people and the climate. The proposal would allow EU countries to rely on food-based biofuels to meet their 2030 climate and energy targets, notwithstanding strong evidence of their harmful impact on communities and the environment.

The amount of money needed for UN humanitarian appeals involving extreme weather events like floods or drought is now eight times higher than 20 years ago — and donors are failing to keep up, reveals a new Oxfam brief today. For every $2 needed for UN weather-related appeals, donor countries are only providing $1.