Tag Archives | vaccine

The world should now be more aware of likely COVID-19 devastation unless urgently checked. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced an US$8 billion plan to quickly vaccinate many more people to expedite ending the pandemic.

Most rich countries have opposed most developing countries’ request to temporarily suspend World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) rules to more quickly contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Expectations were high as Biden had supported a patent waiver, albeit only for vaccines.

The webinar on ‘Vaccine Imperialism: Scientific Knowledge, Capacity and Production in Africa’ which took place on 5 August 5, 2021, was organized by the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) in partnership with the Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Africa).

COVID-19 is the major public health emergency witnessed by human history in recent times. Covid has put humanity to a new test and shaped our World from individual new norms to a new world order.

Even if we were to accept all the accusations against the WIV regarding their alleged subpar safety standards, none of it has any relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic unless it can be shown the WIV possessed SARS-CoV-2 in its lab before the outbreak, and there is no evidence of that.

EVERYWHERE in the world people got vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus without having to pay a penny, but not in India. Everywhere in the world, historic landmarks that define a nation, that constitute the warp and woof of a nation’s consciousness, are held sacred and left untouched in their original shape, but not in India.

Vaccine costs have pushed many developing countries to the end of the COVID-19 vaccination queue, with most low-income ones not even lining up. Worse, less vaccinated poor nations cannot afford fiscal efforts to provide relief or stimulate recovery, let alone achieve Agenda 2030.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced Aug. 31–in a special meeting of scientists and health professionals–that by November, 92.6% of Cuba’s entire population will be fully vaccinated with the three-shot process.

The perfect storm of COVID-19 and climate change, and the resulting economic damage, will most likely trigger much more social and political instability. Although substantially increased international cooperation can still avert this nightmarish scenario, the current state of global politics provides few grounds for optimism.

A broad representation of Cuban scientists will address a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden evidencing Cuba’s scientific and political capacity to face Covid-19, in an altruistic manner, despite the limitations of the U.S. blockade.

Cuba only needs around 30 million syringes to vaccinate its entire population–that is a million dollars. This is a tiny sum for the countries, either together or even individually, which oppose the blockade of Cuba.

Despite facing the world’s worst pandemic of the last century, rich countries in the World Trade Organization (WTO) have blocked efforts to enable more affordable access to the means to fight the pandemic.

In countries where public health restrictions were in place, they were half-baked or have been lifted too soon. Where they are imposing them now, it’s too late; the Delta variant of the coronavirus is surging around the world.

This small island of 11 million people has created five vaccine candidates and sent its medical workers through the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade to heal people around the world.

World Health Organization Director-General notes, “The global failure to share vaccines equitably is fuelling a two-track pandemic that is now taking its toll on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

Last week, Venezuela signed an agreement with Cuba for the purchase of 12 million doses of Abdala, just three days after the country announced and celebrated the success of its locally developed anti-COVID-19 vaccine

In 1869, at the age of fifteen, José Martí and his young friends published a magazine in Cuba called La Patria Libre (‘The Free Homeland’), which adopted a strong position against Spanish imperialism. The first and only issue of the magazine carried Martí’s poem, ‘Abdala’.

An invoice for advance payment of $45 million raised by the offshore partner of Bharat Biotech is certain to become the reason for the impending cancellation of the contract.

The G-7 meeting that has just concluded has promised to donate one billion doses of anti-Covid vaccine to the rest of the world, consisting primarily of the so-called “developing” countries.

With its development of five COVID-19 vaccines and the promise of sharing know-how with developing countries, Cuba has remained faithful to Che Guevara’s values of international solidarity and people-oriented medicine.