VACCINE ALLIANCE WARNS RICH NATIONS HOARDING COVID DOSES

Just one in 10 people in dozens of poor countries will be able to get vaccinated against the coronavirus because wealthy countries have hoarded more doses than they need, the People's Vaccine Alliance (PVA) said.

Rich nations have bought 54% of the total stock of the world's most promising vaccines, despite being home to just 14% of the global population, said the Alliance, a coalition including Oxfam, Amnesty International and Global Justice Now, the German broadcast service Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.

Those wealthy nations have purchased enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations three times over by the end of 2021 if the vaccine candidates currently in clinical trials are approved for use. "This shouldn't be a battle between countries to secure enough doses," Mohga Kamal-Yanni, an advisor for PVA, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Alliance called on pharmaceutical companies developing coronavirus vaccines to openly share their technology and intellectual property through the World Health Organization (WHO) so that more doses can be made. "During these unprecedented times of a global pandemic, people's lives and livelihoods should be put before pharmaceutical company profit," Kamal-Yanni said.