Charity or empowerment? The role of COVAX for low and middle-income countries.

What has the past reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic taught us? We have seen that many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) still lack access to vaccines, and it seems little progress has been made in the last few months and year. This article discusses whether the current strategies, most notably, vaccine donations by the international community and the COVID-19 global access facility COVAX, offer meaningful solutions to tackle the problem. At the centre of our analysis, we compare the concepts of "donations" and "charity" with "vaccine equity" and the "empowerment" of poorer countries. We suggest that the achievement of fair global vaccine production requires that our global approach is supportive of the idea of empowerment. We, therefore, need structural reforms, which would most importantly include capacity building, to positively impact this goal and to take the interests of the global poor seriously.

Expert Views on COVAX and Equitable Global Access to COVID-19 Vaccines.

Objectives: We face the impossibility of having enough COVID-19 vaccines for everyone in the near future. This study aims to contribute to the debate on equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines, tackling key ethical discussions and policy challenges regarding early phases of COVAX, the global cooperation mechanism for supporting fair vaccine allocation. Methods: We conducted in-depth interviews with twelve experts and a literature research on academic articles, media sources and public statements. We built a data analysis matrix and conducted a thematic analysis. Results: Our findings show, first, that interviewed experts who hold different views on vaccine allocation, including moderate nationalist perspectives, agree on joining a global cooperation mechanism. Second, incentives to join COVAX vary greatly among countries. Third, specific barriers to COVAX emerged in the early implementation phase. And fourth, countries might be trapped in a zero-sum game regarding the global vaccine supply. Conclusion: We present findings that enrich analyses of early phases of COVAX (April 2020-21), we introduce three ethical discussions that provide a common ground for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, and we highlight policy challenges.

Brief communication International cooperation in a non-ideal world: the example of COVAX.

The world witnessed one of the fasted responses in history to a new disease in terms of drug and vaccine development. However, despite the fact that safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 were developed at a remarkable pace, international cooperation seems to have failed regarding the global equitable allocation of vaccines. This article explores challenges to international cooperation in global health and specifically to the fair allocation of vaccines at a global scale. We will present major obstacles to cooperative efforts and an interesting answer such as the COVAX facility, a cooperative redistribution scheme that has recently been launched by WHO, CEPI and Gavi. Considering COVAX a laudable and necessary first step to improve international cooperation in health, we nevertheless argue that the facility needs to identify key areas of potential improvement.

O mundo foi testemunha de uma das respostas mais rápidas da história a uma nova doença em termos de desenvolvimento de medicamentos e vacinas. No entanto, apesar do facto de que as vacinas seguras e eficazes para COVID-19 foram desenvolvidas a um ritmo notável, a cooperação internacional parece ter falhado no que diz respeito à distribuição global equitativa de vacinas. Este artigo explora os desafios para a cooperação internacional em matéria de saúde global e, especificamente, para a distribuição justa de vacinas à escala global. Apresentaremos os principais obstáculos aos esforços cooperativos e uma resposta interessante, como o mecanismo COVAX, um esquema de redistribuição cooperativa que foi lançado recentemente pela OMS, CEPI e Gavi. Considerando o COVAX como um primeiro passo louvável e necessário para melhorar a cooperação internacional em saúde, argumentamos que o mecanismo precisa de identificar as áreas de potencial melhoria.

El mundo ha sido testigo de una de las respuestas más rápidas a una nueva enfermedad, en términos de desarrollo de drogas y vacunas. Sin embargo, pese al hecho de que se han desarrollado vacunas seguras y efectivas para el COVID-19 a un paso impresionante; la cooperación internacional en relación al acceso equitativo a las vacunas parece haber fallado. Este artículo explora los desafíos a la cooperación internacional que se plantean en relación a la salud global y, específicamente, a la distribución justa de vacunas a escala global. Presentaremos algunos obstáculos a los esfuerzos cooperativos, así como también una respuesta interesante como lo es la del mecanismo COVAX, un sistema cooperativo de redistribución que ha sido recientemente introducido por la OMS, CEPI y GAVI. Aunque consideramos a COVAX un primer paso meritorio y necesario para mejorar la cooperación internacional en salud; argumentamos que el mecanismo necesita identificar áreas de mejora.

On the Ethics of Vaccine Nationalism: The Case for the Fair Priority for Residents Framework.

COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.K., have demonstrated vaccine nationalism. What are the ethical limits to this vaccine nationalism? Neither extreme nationalism nor extreme cosmopolitanism is ethically justifiable. Instead, we propose the fair priority for residents (FPR) framework, in which governments can retain COVID-19 vaccine doses for their residents only to the extent that they are needed to maintain a noncrisis level of mortality while they are implementing reasonable public health interventions. Practically, a noncrisis level of mortality is that experienced during a bad influenza season, which society considers an acceptable background risk. Governments take action to limit mortality from influenza, but there is no emergency that includes severe lockdowns. This "flu-risk standard" is a nonarbitrary and generally accepted heuristic. Mortality above the flu-risk standard justifies greater governmental interventions, including retaining vaccines for a country's own citizens over global need. The precise level of vaccination needed to meet the flu-risk standard will depend upon empirical factors related to the pandemic. This links the ethical principles to the scientific data emerging from the emergency. Thus, the FPR framework recognizes that governments should prioritize procuring vaccines for their country when doing so is necessary to reduce mortality to noncrisis flu-like levels. But after that, a government is obligated to do its part to share vaccines to reduce risks of mortality for people in other countries. We consider and reject objections to the FPR framework based on a country: (1) having developed a vaccine, (2) raising taxes to pay for vaccine research and purchase, (3) wanting to eliminate economic and social burdens, and (4) being ineffective in combating COVID-19 through public health interventions.

HIV prevention research and COVID-19: putting ethics guidance to the test.

BACKGROUND: Critical public health measures implemented to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic have disrupted health research worldwide, including HIV prevention research. While general guidance has been issued for the responsible conduct of research in these challenging circumstances, the contours of the dueling COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS pandemics raise some critical ethical issues for HIV prevention research. In this paper, we use the recently updated HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Ethics Guidance Document (EGD) to situate and analyze key ethical challenges related to the conduct of HIV prevention research during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as identify potential areas for refinement of the guidance document based on this unprecedented state of affairs. MAIN BODY: Necessary actions taken for HIV prevention research studies due to the COVID-19 pandemic involve an array of ethical issues including those related to: (1) risk mitigation; (2) behavior change; (3) compounding vulnerability; (4) community engagement; (5) trial reopening; and 6) shifting research priorities. CONCLUSIONS: In the context of the dueling HIV and COVID-19 global pandemics, research teams and sponsors must be nimble in responding to the rapidly changing environment by being sensitive to the associated ethical issues. The HTPN EGD provides a rich set of tools to help identify, analyze and address many of these issues. At the same time, future refinements of the HPTN EGD and other research ethics guidance could be strengthened by providing explicit advice regarding the ethical issues associated with disrupted research and the reopening of studies. In addition, additional consideration should be given to appropriately balancing domains of risk (e.g., physical versus social), addressing the vulnerability of research staff and community partners, and responding to un-anticipatable ancillary care needs of participants and communities. Appropriately addressing these issues will necessitate conceptual work, which would benefit from the careful documentation of the actual ethical issues encountered in research, the strategies implemented to overcome them, and their success in doing so. Throughout all of these efforts, it is critical to remember that the HIV pandemic not be forgotten in the rush to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.