Pharmaceutical sector promotes equity of vaccines in pandemics

The biopharmaceutical sector published the “Berlin Declaration: Biopharmaceutical Industry Vision for Equitable Access in Pandemics”, a proposal to guarantee the supply of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for future pandemics as soon as possible to those who need them most.

The proposal of this industry is to create a collaborative solution and calls for a debate with the G7, the G20, multilateral organizations and other decision-makers on pandemic preparedness. Likewise, he points out that the option could be to prioritize and reserve a part of the production in real time to distribute it among the priority populations of the countries with lower incomes.

According to the biopharmaceutical industry proposal, a prerequisite for the success of such a declaration is to ensure that health systems in lower-income countries are better prepared to accept and supply vaccines and treatments, and that higher-income countries provide the necessary political and financial support.

“This declaration acknowledges that while innovation and scale-up of manufacturing were unprecedentedly successful during the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts to achieve equitable access were not fully realized due to the existence of mechanisms inadequate financing and the lack of preparation of the countries, which continue to prevent vaccines from reaching all the people who need them”, highlights the document.