CARITAS: Access to Vaccine is not Equitable

CARITAS: Access to Vaccine Not Equitable
~ by Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic New Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Caritas Internationalis called on world leaders to set aside national and political agendas that seek returns on their investments in the COVID-19 vaccine and instead focus on its equitable distribution, especially in poor countries.

In a statement released February 5, the umbrella organization of official national Catholic charities around the world said that while the availability of the vaccine has brought

much hope, it has also revealed “a wider gap in inequality.”

“It is believed that the ‘miracle’ of the vaccines would reignite the global machinery,” the statement said. “This has led to a kind of focus on the North, shown in nationalism and protectionism. The global South, where the majority of the poor live, is left out.”

Taking care of the poor and the marginalized, who are the “most exposed to the virus,” is “a moral priority because abandoning [these people] puts them and the global community at risk.”
Caritas urged global leaders to ease patent protections and promote collaboration with pharmaceutical companies so he vaccines could be manufactured and made “available in the next six months” in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Local production, they said, must begin, “before it is too late.”

The statement also highlighted the importance of involving local charitable and faith-based organizations that “have basic structures and the necessary contact with the most vulnerable people such as migrants, the internally displaced and the marginalized.”

“This pandemic is a global human security problem that threatens the whole human family,” Caritas said. “Addressing the vaccine issue from the perspective of a narrow national strategy might lead to a moral failure in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable across the globe.”

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