Sir, – Just over 1 per cent of people in low-income countries have been vaccinated against Covid-19 compared to more than 50 per cent in high-income countries. The lack of access to affordable vaccines will fuel additional global waves of infections, human suffering and mortality rates. It will have a lasting influence on welfare, jobs, public debt and the capacity for development.
International Monetary Fund projections show that while high-income countries could reach pre-Covid per capita GDP growth by the end of 2021, the economic impacts of Covid-19 may last until 2024 in low-income countries; 80 per cent of people pushed into poverty by Covid-19 are projected to live in the world’s poorest countries in 2030, all but obliterating progress in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals since 2015.
If Covid-19 vaccines are not made immediately available, low-income countries would need to increase healthcare spending by 30 to 60 per cent to vaccinate 70 per cent of their populations. Even if this were achieved, it would have a detrimental impact on the progress of health and development challenges that would be sacrificed to achieve this. In contrast high-income countries could have the same impact by increasing GDP spending by just 0.8 per cent.
In 2020, the world’s two billion informal workers, that is half the global workforce, saw their earnings decline by 60 per cent due to Covid-19.
Every additional day that goes by without faster and fairer access to vaccines will deepen the social and economic divide between the haves and the have-nots.
This renders the world’s most vulnerable to highly transmissible, deadly and vaccine-resistant Covid-19 strains.
Irish vaccine donations to vulnerable countries have reached 1.25 million doses. Is there a case for multinational corporations to step in now and commit to the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines for the benefit of vulnerable countries in terms of social and health equity? This step would also maximise the ability to restore the global market economy. – Yours, etc,
CATHERINE CONLON,
Ballintemple,
Cork.