On the day that I read Nesrine Malik’s moving personal account, encapsulating the fate of billions of people who have little or no control over their health destinies (When my family in Sudan caught Covid, the sheer injustice of fate sank in, 14 March), I also read that the £37bn spent on the failing test-and-trace scheme is three times the cost of the UK vaccine programme, and more than we spend on primary and pre-primary education annually. This sums up the hypocrisy of arguments by governments and industrial leaders about what can and can’t be afforded.
Malik, calling for an active enforcement of justice through sharing, stated: “Anything else is apartheid.” This echoed the phrase “vaccine apartheid” used by Dr Thabo Makgoba, the archbishop of Cape Town, when he spoke to the digital People’s Vaccine global rally this month. Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, the president of the Ghana Registered Nurses’ and Midwives’ Association, challenged world leaders: “How can you call yourself world giant if you cannot share knowledge related to vaccine production? … The world powers must show leadership … What is all this money to the world if you cannot save humanity?”
The People’s Vaccine campaign, initiated by Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAids, aims to win access to affordable vaccines through the waiving of patents, drawing parallels with earlier battles over treatments for HIV/Aids. Success, along with support for distribution and administration of vaccines globally, will save humankind. We are all in this together.
Janice O’Neill
Stockport
