By Emily Caulkett-
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have today published an open letter accusing the UK and ‘rich’ neighbours of pursuing ‘self-defeating nationalism’ to deny African and Asian countries the right to make their own Covid-19 vaccines.
The couple who have stepped out from royal duties, are campaigning for Britain to work with pharmaceutical companies to waive intellectual property rights on the life-saving jabs in the latest flashpoint between Harry and his home country.
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The letter, which comes on the second anniversary of Covid-19 being declared a pandemic, is also signed by actress Charlize Theron, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.
In the open letter published this afternoon, Meghan, Harry and other signatories warned ‘the pandemic is not over’, and blamed ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’ for the entire world not being vaccinated by now.
The Duke and Duchess Of Sussex have in the past campaigned for vaccines equity -a term that has emerged for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
According to the World Health Organization, the overwhelming majority of vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries—a concept being called “vaccine hoarding” or “vaccine nationalism.” Wealthy nations like Canada and the U.K., “quickly bought up more than their fair share of vaccine doses relative to their populations,” Global Citizen, an international anti-poverty advocacy organization and partner of Harry and Meghan’s foundation explains. “Meanwhile, low- and middle-income countries have struggled to secure enough doses,” putting already vulnerable populations at a further disadvantage.
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Harry and Meghan’s have pushed for the five major pharmaceutical companies to pursue “every possible measure to increase global supply, including the temporary suspension of intellectual property.” It was a reference to persistent calls urging Big Pharma to waive vaccine patents,
The UK has pledged to donate 100million coronavirus vaccine doses within the next year to low-income countries as part of at least 1billion doses due from the G7. There have been a number of African countries, including Nigeria, where more than one million doses were destroyed last year because they expired after low uptake saw just two per cent of the population fully vaccinated in 2021.
A large percentage of Africa’s Covid vaccine deliveries remain in storage as rollouts are hindered by jab hesitancy and infrastructure problems.
The Sussexes have repeatedly called for global vaccine equity, comparing it to the HIV crisis in 1980s and 1990s, and today their Archewell Foundation joined The People’s Vaccine coalition, a group of 90 famous names and organisations demanding vaccines are ‘freely available to everyone, everywhere’.
The couple have today said that ‘world leaders’ and ‘rich nations’ now ‘have the responsibility to change the situation’ in a letter also signed by Charlize Theron and Ban Ki-Moon.
Their letter says: ‘The European Union, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland , continue to block the lifting of intellectual property rules which would enable the distribution and scale-up of Covid-19 vaccines, test and treatment facilities in the global south.
‘The transfer of largely publicly funded vaccine technology and know-how from pharmaceutical corporations would fast track production to a matter of months. Yet still today, a handful of these corporations retain the power to dictate vaccine supply, distribution and price – and the power to decide who lives and who dies’.
Last year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their decision to step back from their roles as senior royals in order to launch a “new charitable entity” and become financially independent.
The same year they announced a partnership with Procter & Gamble, the US pharma and consumer goods corporation.
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