Closing the Covid-19 vaccination gap

Coronavirus cases are once again rising in Europe and across the world. The World Health Organisation has said that countries shouldn’t be giving out booster jabs for the rest of the year, but in the UK we’re offering third shots to people as young as 40. Meanwhile, only 3% of people in low-income countries have had a single dose.

Covid vaccines may have prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths in the UK, but who is missing out on the global vaccine rollout? Why can’t poorer countries get hold of the Covid vaccine? And how can we change the rules of our international economy so that everyone is protected during the pandemic?

For the last episode of the series, Ayeisha is joined by Achal Prabhala, writer, researcher, and coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, and Saiorse Fitzpatrick, advocacy manager at STOPAIDS.

- Listen to a previous episode on vaccine nationalism with Miriam Brett and Tahir Amin https://neweconomics.org/2021/02/weekly-economics-podcast-vaccine-nationalism

- Read more about the WTO proposal by India and South Africa to temporarily waive intellectual property on Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and related technologies. Talks on this due to take place in Geneva on the 30th November have now been postponed. https://www.twn.my/title2/intellectual_property/trips_waiver_proposal.htm

- Support the People's Vaccine https://peoplesvaccine.org/

- Follow STOPAIDS on Twitter - the hashtag for the ice cream action Ayeisha mentioned in this episode is #Iscreamvaccine https://twitter.com/STOPAIDS

- For more from Achal, head to the AccessIBSA website https://accessibsa.org/

- For more on Covid-19 vaccines, the TRIPS waiver and more, go to the Third World Network website https://www.twn.my/

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Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone.

Music by Asthmatic Astronaut and Poddington Bear under Creative Commons license.

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The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org