Gordon Brown accused the European Union of adopting a “neocolonial approach” to the supply of Covid-19 vaccine and demanded that wealthy Western countries give up control of pandemic treatment.
This former prime minister visited Joe Biden, Boris Johnson And Mario Draghi will hold a special summit during the UN General Assembly in New York next month to address the vaccine shortage in Africa.
In writing for the Guardian, Brown said that, shockingly, about 10 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines were produced in a factory in the South. Africa Was exported to the European Union, rather than helping African countries achieve their modest targets for epidemic vaccines.
Brown wrote: “Compared with the rapid development of the groundbreaking Covid vaccine, it should be straightforward to get the vaccine into the world. But vaccine nationalism — and Europe’s neocolonial approach to global health — is bringing the world away. Divided into rich and protected people, they are alive, while the poor are not protected and are at risk of death.”
Despite the warnings issued by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank More urgent action is neededBrown said 45 of the 54 African countries will not be able to achieve the September target of vaccinating 10% of their citizens.
Rich countries should provide 50 billion pounds of financial support, abandon patents to allow African countries to manufacture their own medicines and reduce unnecessary vaccine stocks. He said that African countries need to be vaccinated immediately, and rich countries are not safe until every country has mass vaccinations.
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Brown said that the United States can choose to purchase nearly 2 billion additional doses of vaccine, the EU can purchase an additional 1 billion doses, and Canada has received 191 million doses.
“Due to over-ordering, their population may not use all of these vaccines, but in the process of securing preferential agreements, rich countries actually shut out African countries and cannot get the vaccines they desperately need,” he said.
Brown said that the gap between rich and poor countries is so great that 88% of the vaccines distributed globally go to the G20 group, the richest country in the world.
He pointed out that 50% of adult populations in Europe, the UK and the US are fully vaccinated, while this figure in Africa is only 1.8%.
“We must constantly remind ourselves to ensure the reasons for mass vaccination worldwide,” he said. “Unless everyone is safe, no place will be safe, and unless no one does this, everyone will live in fear.”
