Join the call to protect humanity and vaccinate our world

Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest provider of HIV/Aids care and treatment worldwide, is spearheading a global initiative calling on governments, vaccine manufacturers and international public health institutions to “Vow” to protect humanity and provide equal access to Covid-19 vaccines and “Vaccinate our World! (Vow)”.

The call to action will kick off with global multimedia advocacy and newspaper advertising campaigns, social media and other public awareness materials that will be distributed throughout several of the 45 countries where AHF operates, as well as press events in Bangkok, Joburg, London, São Paulo and Washington, DC. 

With most countries tragically behind in securing enough Covid-19 vaccines for their citizens, it’s clear the world needs an urgent and innovative call to action to have a real chance at defeating the global pandemic. 

This ambitious, but achievable, “Vaccinate our World” call to action includes five primary tenets:

• The global Covid-19 vaccination effort must secure $100bn from G20 countries;
• It must produce and provide seven-billion vaccine doses worldwide within one year;
• Companies and governments must waive or suspend all Covid-19 vaccine patents during the pandemic;
• Countries must be 100% transparent in sharing information and data, and;
• World leaders must promote far greater international co-operation as the driving force for ending the pandemic. 

“If the immorality of vaccine rationing doesn’t bother you, the danger it poses to the world should. Even though wealthy nations said at the start of the pandemic that everyone would get vaccines, low-income countries have received less than 1% of the 773-million worldwide doses that have been administered,” says AHF president Michael Weinstein.

“We’ve exceeded 140-million worldwide Covid-19 cases and more than 3-million deaths globally. Meanwhile, wealthy countries hoard vaccines, and experts predict it is likely to take until the end of 2022 to get life-saving doses to the world’s most vulnerable populations. That is unacceptable — no country will be safe until every country is safe and every ember of the Covid-19 wildfire is extinguished. The world must collectively vow to end this pandemic by taking all necessary steps to vaccinate our world now!”

World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently remarked that 87% of the more than 700-million vaccines administered globally have gone to high-income or upper-middle-income countries, while low-income countries have received a mere 0.2%. High-income countries have vaccinated about one in four people, whereas only one in more than 500 people in low-income countries has received a Covid-19 vaccine.

In addition to securing sufficient funding, vaccine production must be increased worldwide, and access to patents should be free-flowing to allow for the rapid scale-up of production. Ending the pandemic will also require more information sharing and co-operation between nations — including removing self-imposed restrictions on vaccine exports for those countries with a surplus. Leaders from the G20 and global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank must also vow to step up their contributions immediately.

“There is hard work and heavy lifting to be done but with a world united we can, and must do it,” says Weinstein. “Nations around the globe have spent trillions of dollars in fighting the novel coronavirus — and lost trillions in productivity with devastating consequences to their economies. $100bn is a small price to pay to protect everyone on the planet with life-saving vaccinations.”

For more information, visit Vaccinateourworld.org.

The AHF provides medical care and services to more than 1.5-million clients in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific region and Europe.

To learn more about AHF, visit www.aidshealth.org, and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

This article was paid for by Aids Healthcare Foundation.