Meghan Markle, Prince Harry write to G20 nations on COVID vaccine inequity

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have, once again, raised the issue of global vaccine inequity. In an open letter, also signed by the World Health Organisation, penned to the G20 leaders, they have asked nations to hold true to their promise at the G7 Summit in June to send one billion vaccine doses to the low-income and low-and-middle-income countries in the battle against COVID-19.  

'Where are the doses?', they asked as they questioned the lack of vaccines for even health workers in these countries. Highlighting pharmaceutical companies' promise of a similar vaccine target, they asked "where are the rest?" as only "3% of people in low-income countries" of the seven billion vaccine doses administered globally had received vaccine doses.  They have also questioned the COVAX initiative, which has, till now, delivered only 11.5% or 150 million of the 11.3 billion doses it had pledged to. 

Prince Harry& Meghan Markle write to G20 leaders on global vaccine inequity

"Promises aren’t translating into vaccines reaching the people that need them," Meghan Markle and Prince Harry wrote in their letter, also signed by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. 

They highlighted that many of the 'wealthy countries' had 'millions of surplus vaccines' that were destined to be 'wasted' when it will hit their expiry dates.  The trio wrote that each of these 'discarded dose' should 'outrage us all' since they were mechanisms to donate them all. They shared that every such dose represented a 'real person', a mother, father, daughter or son, who could have received the vaccine and be protected from the disease.

The letter further addressed the 'common goal to tackle global inequity' irrespective of the different locations, backgrounds and life experiences they belonged to.

Writing that G20 leaders had the "power to accelerate long-promised donations" and break the 'hold' that manufacturing countries and pharmaceutical companies had with regards to the manufacturing of the vaccines and the access to them.

Sharing that ways to address the vaccine access crisis were part of the conversations all year around, they added, 'Today, we join with others to urge global leaders to end this devastating inequity and end this pandemic once and for all."

They called it 'public vaccines' and that access to vaccines were a 'fundamental human right.' The trio wrote that the mission to donate vaccines, as fast as possible to have the greatest possible impact against COVID-19 was being blocked by 'avoidable obstacles' like the 'inability or unwillingness of vaccine producing countries and pharmaceutical firms to share one of the most important public goods in modern history.'

They shared that the decisions taken this weekend, will 'make or break' the target to vaccinate 40 per cent of the world population by end of 2021 and 70 per cent by 2022-end.

Among the other suggestions included in the letter uploaded on the WHO website was closing the '550 million dose gap', speeding new donations to COVAX, and eliminating export restrictions. fully funding the COVID-19 Tool Accelerator, holding pharmaceutical companies to higher transparency standards, including publicly shared monthly production projections and delivery schedules and sharing vaccine technology and ridding of barriers like by supporting a proposal to the waiving of intellectual property constraints.

It also highlighted the 'trillions'' lost due to the pandemic, and how returning to the normal life would depend on not allowing the vaccine to thrive that would give a platform for new variants of the vaccine to develop.

Previously, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had pushed for vaccine equity last month at the Global Citizen Live event.