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People’s Vaccine campaign
MPs Caroline Lucas and Clive Lewis and Baroness Shami Chakrabati joined Global Justice Now, Just Treatment and StopAIDS to encourage more MPs to speak out on vaccine inequality.
Scientists’ letter
In January, we helped bring together over 300 scientists to call out the government’s failure on vaccine equity describing it a ‘reckless approach to public health.’ In a letter sent to the government at the end of the month, they highlighted the risk of new variants emerging among populations who have not had access to vaccines. The scientists called for the government to back a waiver on Covid-19 vaccines and treatments and to pressure pharmaceutical companies to share their technology and know-how.
With the government continuing to bury its head in the sand, it was an important moment to remind ministers and the public that this waiver is needed urgently. The letter was signed by thirteen members of the government’s SAGE committees, a former chief executive of the NHS, and a Nobel Prize winner. Five signatories have received knighthoods or damehoods for services to health and science. In short, the weight of science and public health is on our side.
The letter has received wide news coverage, including the BBC, the Telegraph, ITV, LBC, Metro, and Reuters. We also worked on a short video with three of the signatories, including former NHS chief executive Lord Nigel Crisp, which you can find on Global Justice Now’s social media (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram).
While highlighting the dangers of low vaccine coverage to the health of the NHS and people in the UK is important, we continue to focus on the great global unfairness of vaccine roll out. The Omicron wave has so far been less severe than others here in the UK, but it’s clear our access to vaccines has been crucial to this. While the UK government lapses into insular complacency, we can’t let anyone forget
that only 10% of people in low-income countries have received a single jab.
Decolonise vaccines, end the pandemic
Why we need to break pharma monopolies and win a new approach to global health
Speakers: Fatima Hassan, Health Justice Initiative, South Africa (week 1) Maurine Murenga, Lean on Me Foundation, Kenya (week 2) The Covid-19 pandemic is in its third year. Rich governments are giving out booster vaccine doses. Meanwhile, the modest goal of vaccinating at least 40% of every country’s population last year was missed. Global vaccine inequality shows that pharmaceutical companies cannot be trusted to act in the name of our common good. Join us to discuss the fight against vaccine apartheid and what the alternative looks like. Find venue information and further speaker details at
globaljustice.org.uk/pharma-tour
14 March: Brighton 15 March: Cambridge 18 March: London 19 March: Leeds
28 March: Leicester 29 March: Manchester 30 March: Newcastle 31 March: Stirling 2 April: We Rise, GJN youth network national gathering, London
Pfizer’s astronomical profits
In early February, Pfizer announced
staggering vaccine revenues of $37 billion for
2021, making their vaccine the most lucrative drug of all time by annual review. While they rake in huge sums and bask in the adulation of the business world, only 16% of people in Africa have received a single jab. It really is a damning indictment of the global health system. These revenues are seven times more than the government health spending of all low-income countries.
We were at least able to criticise the company’s profiteering in the press, with the Times, the Guardian and the Independent all carrying stories on it. We can’t allow pharma companies to continue to wield power over the world in this way – and we’ll be pressing harder for a more democratic global health system in the coming months.
Local speaker events
To do this, we need to keep building this movement. In March, we’re taking embarking on a speaker tour across the country, laying out the case for a more democratic, decolonised global health system (see box above).
Our pharma campaigner Tim is also set to speak to Global Justice Now groups in Oxford, Nottingham, Reading, and London in the coming months. Global Justice Cambridge who have already hosted a meeting with Tim.
Activists in unions, the NHS and across society can see that something has gone very badly wrong in this pandemic. That means it should be possible to find and work with local allies on this campaign, for instance through holding a joint meeting. This kind of alliance building can help us challenge the idea that we need the likes of Pfizer so much that we have to let them do what they like.
Key resources
UK government: Suspend the patents
Campaign postcard (2021).
Free Covid-19 vaccines from Big Pharma monopolies Four-page A5 leaflet (2021).
Fighting for a People’s Vaccine Supporter briefing, four pages (September 2021).
Stickers The global south needs a vaccine too. Sheets of 12.
