at 8:47 am NPR
Dr. Eugene Richardson has spent most of his adult life working as a physician and an anthropologist in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, South Africa and Sudan.
No matter where he went, he was perplexed by this public health conundrum: The world has the resources to prevent all these senseless, tragic deaths, but we don t do it, says Richardson. There are still famines. There are still people dying of measles and HIV and diphtheria. Why?
That s what Richardson explores in his new book, Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health, published by MIT Press.
“Even with the unprecedented levels of public financing and the accelerated pace of bringing such vaccines to market, global demand will vastly outstrip available supply during this scale-up period. Intense interest has focused on which countries and when populations will have access to safe and effective vaccine candidates emerging from research and development,” the Johns Hopkins University researchers said in their study.
Higher income countries, including the European Union bloc, have secured deals to purchase 51% of vaccine doses although they only make up less than 14% of the world’s population. Only six of the 13 manufacturers who’ve made vaccine deals have sold to low- and middle-income countries.