Most early deaths caused by COVID-19 happened in developing economies. The global scale of the pandemic made clear where most vaccines are distributed and who bears the disproportionate health burden due to not having access to them. Low-income economies, clearly, had less access to vaccines.
Vaccine manufacturers have been heavily criticised by advocates for prioritising profit over making access to vaccines equitable by retaining high-profit margins, holding on to intellectual property rights and production rights, and prioritising ‘those who can pay most’.
Criticism of ‘pandemic profit’ is particularly directed at manufacturers who use mRNA technology, a relatively new and promising vaccine technology. Meanwhile, the term ‘vaccine nationalism’ was used to describe how countries – especially developed ones – saved large amounts of vaccine doses for their own population, limiting access to doses for low-income economies.
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