Sir, – While we in Ireland expect that the Covid-19 vaccination programme will lead to the return of a relatively normal lifestyle within a year, the majority of the world’s population will have to wait two to three years to be offered a vaccine due to manufacturing constraints.
This delay will inevitably exacerbate global health and economic inequality. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) is the most promising mechanism to enable manufacturing capacity to meet the global demand for a vaccine by enabling pharmaceutical companies to share knowledge, data and intellectual property rights with other manufacturers. We call upon the Irish Government to immediately indicate its support for the WHO C-TAP initiative. Yours, etc,
Dr KIERAN HARKIN,
Access to Medicines Ireland,
Comhlamh, JIM CLARKEN,
CEO, Oxfam Ireland,
NADINE FERRIS FRANCE,
ED, Irish Global Health
Network, Dr EDWARD
MATHEWS, INMO, Prof
SAM MCCONKEY, RCSI,
SIOBHAN MCGEE, CEO,
ActionAid Ireland, Prof
LUKE O NEILL, Trinity
College Dublin, ISABEL
SIMPSON, ED, MSF Ireland.