The role of civil society in mobilizing human rights struggles for essential medicines: a critique from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. (Special Issue: COVID-19 vaccine equity and human rights.)
Health and Human Rights: An International Journal
; 24(2):177-189, 2022.
Article
in English
| CAB Abstracts | ID: covidwho-2280436
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we explore the strategies utilized by civil society organizations to improve access to medicines during the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 health crises. In particular, we seek to illuminate why some of the successful approaches for increasing access to antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS in the early 2000s failed in creating equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines. While civil society has historically mobilized human rights to facilitate greater access to essential medicines, we argue that earlier strategies were not always sustainable and that civil society is now mobilizing human rights in radically different ways than previously. Instead of focusing chiefly on securing an intellectual property waiver to the TRIPS Agreement, civil society organizations are now challenging vaccine injustice, rejecting the "charity discourse" that fuels Global South dependency on Global North actors in favor of scaling up manufacture in low- and middle-income countries, and moving to embed the right to access medicines in a new World Health Organization pandemic treaty with civil society organization participation and meaningful representation from low- and middle-income countries. Such approaches, we contend, will lead to more sustainable solutions in order to avert further health care disasters, like those seen with two distinct but related struggles-the fights for equitable access to essential medicines for HIV/AIDS and for COVID-19.
Prion; Viral; Bacterial and Fungal Pathogens of Humans [VV210], Health Services [UU350], Community Participation and Development [UU450], Agencies and Organizations [DD100], Social Psychology and Social Anthropology [UU485], Pesticides and Drugs, Control [HH405], Host Resistance and Immunity [HH600], human diseases, human rights, human immunodeficiency viruses, HIV infections, viral diseases, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, coronavirus disease 2019, non-governmental organizations, community involvement, antiretroviral agents, drug therapy, access, health care, health services, vaccines, vaccination, immunization, reviews, intellectual property rights, health inequalities, health programmes, infections, antiviral agents, immune sensitization, man, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, Lentivirus, low income countries, lower-middle income countries, Homo, Hominidae, primates, mammals, vertebrates, Chordata, animals, eukaryotes, Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Coronavirinae, Coronaviridae, Nidovirales, positive-sense ssRNA Viruses, ssRNA Viruses, RNA Viruses, viruses, Orthoretrovirinae, Retroviridae, RNA Reverse Transcribing Viruses, human immunodeficiency virus infections, viral infections, AIDS, SARS-CoV-2, nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, chemotherapy, health disparities, health programs, antivirals
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Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
CAB Abstracts
Topics:
Vaccines
Language:
English
Journal:
Health and Human Rights: An International Journal
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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