Response to Lancet Commission on lessons from COVID-19 for future pandemics

Responding to The Lancet COVID-19 Commission’s report on lessons for future pandemics, Anna Marriott, Health Policy Manager at Oxfam and Policy Co-Lead for the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said:

“The Lancet Commission details the utter failure of rich country leaders and pharmaceutical companies to ensure the tools needed to end this pandemic were accessible to everyone, everywhere. The findings of this commission should shame the international community. Nationalism, racism, profiteering, and an overreaching intellectual property system all prevented lower-income countries from accessing or producing vaccines.

“It is vital that we learn the lessons of this report, end pharma’s deadly monopolies, and build more capacity for the development and manufacturing of vaccines, tests, and treatments in low and middle-income countries. Governments need to act immediately to extend an agreement made earlier this year on overriding COVID-19 vaccine patents to cover lifesaving treatments and tests. And they must safeguard World Health Organisation backed efforts to produce mRNA vaccine manufacturing on every continent from the threat of litigation from companies like Moderna. The pandemic treaty currently under discussion needs to make clear that saving lives must come before profits and decisions about who lives and who dies are never again outsourced to the CEOs of big pharma.”