Justin Trudeau, 7 other world leaders call for equal access to COVID-19 vaccine

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau along with seven world leaders called on the international community to ensure equitable access of an ‘eventual COVID-19 vaccine’. With rising coronavirus cases around the globe, the eight world leaders, including South Korea’s Moon-Jae in, New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Spain’s PM Pedro Sánchez, Sweden’s PM Stefan Lofven, Ethiopia’s Sahle-Work Zewde and Tunisia’s Elyes Fakhfakh, co-authored an article in a bid to seek cooperation from global leaders. 

While calling COVID-19 vaccine the ‘most powerful public health tool’, the leaders in the article said that they cannot allow its access to increase inequalities between or within countries. Trudeau on July 16 took to Twitter to inform that Canada along with partners around the globe is working to find a coronavirus vaccine. He further also said that the world needs to keep ‘working together’ to make sure that people across the globe have access to it. 

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The eight leaders wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece that while the global cooperation in terms of resources, expertise and experience are paramount for developing a vaccine, manufacturing and distributing it equally will ‘truly put global cooperation to the test’. They further urged leaders to ‘urgently ensure’ that vaccine will be distributed according to a set of transparent, equitable and scientifically sound principles. Further, the eight leaders said that ‘global solidarity’ is central to saving lives and protecting the economy. 

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Vaccine trial data to be released soon 

The call for equal access to vaccine comes after two frontrunners presented positive news on the coronavirus vaccines front. According to reports, the initial trials of Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate could be announced soon. The much-awaited vaccine candidate, which has been licensed to AstraZeneca and backed by the UK government with tens of millions of pounds, is going through large-scale Phase III human trials in Brazil, the epicentre of coronavirus in Latin America. 

While the efficacy of the potential COVID-19 vaccine will be established after the Phase III trials, the results of early-stage trials, which is yet to be published, are equally important. After speculations over the release of Phase I intensified, The Lancet spokesperson said that the early-stage human trial data is currently undergoing final editing and preparation, and will be published on July 20. 

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