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Results: 1 - 15 of 53
Lauren Ravon
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Lauren Ravon
2021-03-08 11:16
Fantastic. Thank you very much. Happy International Women's Day to you all.
Thank you for the invitation to appear on behalf of the People's Vaccine Alliance. As you may know, Oxfam is one of the founding members of this growing movement of health and humanitarian organizations, past and present world leaders, health experts and economists. We're calling for a COVID-19 vaccine to be made available for all people in all countries and free of charge.
We know that COVID-19 knows no borders and has impacted everyone's life. Canadians from coast to coast to coast are hurting. But we also know that the pandemic has hit certain groups harder than others. Here in Canada, Black, indigenous and racialized women, women with disabilities, and immigrant women have been hardest hit by the virus. In many cities, they have the highest infection rates. This is because so many of these women are frontline health care workers or work in what we now recognize as essential jobs. This is why Oxfam has labelled the coronavirus the “inequality” virus, to emphasize just how much COVID-19 is deepening and exacerbating existing inequalities.
The pandemic has demanded interventions on a scale and scope not seen in decades. Canada has invested unprecedented levels of resources to provide a safety net for people here in Canada, but it has also offered significant support to help developing countries weather this storm. This includes close to $940 million to support equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines through the WHO access to COVID-19 tools accelerator. This funding also includes $325 million for the COVAX advance market commitment stream, which aims to help vaccinate 20% of people in 92 low- and middle-income countries, especially the most at-risk groups.
Unfortunately, at current trends, nine out of 10 people in low-income countries will miss out on a COVID-19 vaccine this year. Estimates show that poorer countries will not have widespread vaccination programs in place until 2024. We need to do better. The longer the virus is around, the more likely it is to mutate, making current immunization efforts ineffective.
The WHO initiatives that Canada is supporting are important. Unfortunately, they do not tackle the global problem of vaccine shortages. They are also undermined by wealthy countries cutting bilateral supply deals that drive up prices and limit supplies. Our best chance of us all staying safe is to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are available for us all as a global common good. This will only be possible if we change the way in which vaccines are produced and distributed. Pharmaceutical companies need to allow COVID-19 vaccines to be produced as widely as possible by sharing vaccine technology free from intellectual property rights. We need to maximize production so that enough doses are available for the world to achieve herd immunity.
What's fantastic is that Canada can help end the scramble for vaccines. Canada became co-chair of the COVAX advance market commitment engagement group this past January. In her role as co-chair, Minister Gould can strengthen COVAX by pushing for increased transparency and inviting developing countries and civil society representatives to decision-making spaces. Canada should refrain from procuring vaccines from COVAX at this time. For many low-income countries, COVAX may be their one and only chance of receiving vaccines this year.
Ghana and Ivory Coast received their first vaccine shipments this past week through COVAX. This is worth celebrating as a first step to ensuring that their health care workers have the protection they need to do their jobs safely. Unfortunately, close to 80 other countries have yet to receive a single dose.
The world needs more vaccines, and fast. This week Canada has the opportunity to change the course of the pandemic. A waiver on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, otherwise known as TRIPS, is being brought to a vote at the World Trade Organization. Spearheaded by South Africa and India, and supported by more than 100 countries, this waiver would be a game-changer for increasing vaccine supplies, as it would allow countries with the manufacturing capacity to make COVID-19 vaccines.
We hope to see Canada vote in favour. This pandemic has shown us how interconnected we all are and how vital it is to have international co-operation and solidarity. By voting in favour of the TRIPS waiver at the WTO this week, Canada can help stop the pandemic in its tracks.
Thank you on behalf of Oxfam and the People's Vaccine Alliance for the opportunity to appear today.
Jason Nickerson
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Jason Nickerson
2021-02-26 13:20
Good afternoon, and thank you to the committee for having me back today.
It has been said many times that this is a global pandemic that requires global solidarity and global actions. In addition to protecting Canadians, it is essential that our government unite behind a truly global response. Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, teams have witnessed a severe second wave of the COVID pandemic in many of the places where we work. In places such as Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, health systems have struggled to cope with the sudden onslaught of patients. Several African countries have recorded more COVID-19 cases in the month of January 2021 than in all of 2020 combined, and in many countries, the indirect impacts of the pandemic, in particular the disruption of essential health services, have been even more deadly than COVID itself.
My key message today is that our immediate global priority needs to be ensuring that health care workers and other people most at risk in low- and middle-income countries have equitable access to the most effective and contextually appropriate COVID-19 vaccines urgently. Unless we scale up access to vaccines in all places, the world risks generating new pandemics of vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variants. If we fail at equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, we fail at global public health. It's that simple. This would be morally catastrophic and a significant risk to the public health of all people, including Canadians.
There are billions of people in the world who are almost exclusively dependent on the Covax facility as the source of their vaccines, yet it wasn't until Wednesday of this week that the first doses from Covax arrived in the first recipient country. That's because Covax itself is struggling to access doses in a timely way, in large part because the existing supply has so far been monopolized by high-income countries.
I want to emphasize that the only reason for Covax's existence in the first place is because the way that the world currently develops, manufactures and delivers new medicines and vaccines is broken. It is set up to maximize profits. The pharmaceutical industry is not set up to rapidly respond to emerging pathogens with pandemic potential. It is not designed to scale up manufacturing of new health technologies to meet global demand, and as we are seeing today and have seen for decades, it is not set up to ensure equitable access to new medicines and vaccines, particularly for people in economically poor countries.
We need to change the way the world develops medicines and vaccines, to prioritize developing the tools needed to respond to public health threats and making them readily available and accessible. There are vast areas of medicine that cannot and simply do not respond to the market. They're market failures. COVID-19 clearly falls into that category. A year and a half ago, there was no commercial interest in coronavirus vaccines. The same is true of Ebola and drug-resistant infections. As Canada moves toward a conversation of biomanufacturing of medicines and vaccines, it's essential that this not just be a conversation about how to incentivize private companies to build factories here. It needs to be a conversation that transforms our relationship with the way that medicines and vaccines are discovered, developed, manufactured and delivered.
This committee actually studied this issue during its study on federally funded health research in 2018. None of the recommendations made by the committee in that report have been implemented, though they could have helped avert parts of this crisis by demanding fair pricing, greater transparency and sharing of technologies, and global access to drugs and vaccines developed with Canadian public funding.
It is common sense that when the federal government invests in vaccine or drug development it would ensure that the final product is available at a fair price around the world, including in Canada, but that's not what happens. We know that Canadians are concerned by this, because more than 90,000 people signed MSF's petition calling on the federal government to attach conditions to federal funding to ensure that the medicines and vaccines we pay to develop are affordable and accessible to people who need them.
We have three recommendations today for this committee. One, Canada needs a timeline for making a percentage of its doses of COVID-19 vaccines available for use in low- and middle-income countries to vaccinate health care workers and other high-risk people. Canada has publicly released timelines for when we anticipate having a surplus of doses, so Canada should release a timeline for the sharing of vaccines. This committee should ask for it.
Two, push for the implementation of the recommendations in the 2018 study on federally funded health research and open science, which recommended that Canada make the funding provided to develop new medicines and vaccines conditional on recipients ensuring that they would be available to people around the world at affordable, fair prices.
Three, we request that the Parliamentary Budget Officer review any drugs and vaccines that have been discovered and developed with Canadian public funding to understand whether, under a different model of production, we might have more affordable and accessible options for things like the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine. This vaccine was first developed with Canadian public funding and to date costs $98.60 per dose, unquestionably the most expensive vaccine in use in global health.
As always, I'm happy to discuss any of this in greater detail. Thank you again for having me back.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-26 13:40
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all the witnesses for their important testimony.
Mr. Nickerson, I remember a brilliant presentation that was made at the beginning of the pandemic. I was impressed and thought it was an interesting and relevant perspective. Indeed, the global pandemic has confounded all the experts who, for too long, thought that the virus would remain in mainland China. We now know that the virus is not staying in mainland China and that we are facing a global problem. Vaccine protectionism has been chosen as the solution. How do you explain this?
As my colleague Mr. Powlowski said, the vaccines will be delivered. So shouldn't Canada drop the idea of tapping into the COVAX bank?
Jason Nickerson
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Jason Nickerson
2021-02-26 13:41
I think the point you're getting at is that this is a global public health emergency and what happens in one country affects all of us everywhere. Disease control and public health interventions that are applied inequitably or only in one country will simply not be effective at ending the pandemic. We live in an interconnected world, where disease knows no borders.
To the question of vaccines and vaccine access, I think it's very clear that what we have seen over the past three months, as vaccines have started to roll out, is that the vast majority, almost exclusively all, of the vaccine doses that have been administered have been administered in high-income countries. As I said, there are only this week shipments of COVID-19 vaccine doses arriving in countries through the Covax mechanism. A large reason for that is that the available vaccine supply has largely been monopolized by high-income countries up to this point. We face a fundamental problem of high need, high demand, and extremely limited supply up to this point.
On the issue of Covax specifically, I want to be very clear that I actually think that Canada's participating in Covax as a purchasing country was appropriate at the outset. This mechanism was intended to be a global procurement mechanism that would be guided by principles of equitable access to prioritize high-risk health care workers and other vulnerable people as a global priority. That was the deal. We vaccinate the people who are at highest risk in every country everywhere as a matter of urgency. Having purchasing countries participate in that to demonstrate that we're not just invested in this as a charitable function but also as a mechanism for changing the way we procure and distribute vaccines I think was appropriate.
To then also sign bilateral agreements for a large number of vaccine doses, which is the situation Canada and other high-income countries are in today, and to then go and draw on the Covax mechanism at the same time as effectively monopolizing the global supply—I think that's not appropriate. The solution here is that Canada should sit this first round out, because we need those Covax doses to be going to countries that are entirely dependent on Covax as their procurement mechanism and who don't have the same kind of bilateral deals that Canada and other countries have.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-26 13:44
Dr. Morris, I am going to take advantage of our meeting to create a dynamic.
Do you agree with Mr. Nickerson?
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-22 12:59
Thank you.
Dr. Bernstein, the way out of this pandemic is through global vaccination. Ninety-two percent of vaccines are currently administered in rich countries. You said that these rich countries have to accept that 5% to 10% of their vaccine supply should go to less developed countries, those that cannot afford to enter into bilateral agreements with vaccine suppliers.
What do you think about Canada's draw on the COVAX vaccine bank?
Alan Bernstein
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Alan Bernstein
2021-02-22 13:00
Sure.
I think it is important that Canada be a major contributor to both COVAX and other mechanisms for vaccines for the developing world. Until the U.S. came in I think we were the largest contributor per capita to the COVAX facility. But it's in our interest to make sure that everyone in the world is vaccinated as quickly as possible. Dr. Sharma alluded to the variants that inevitably have appeared, and those variants will appear anywhere. The number of variants that appear will be directly proportional to the size of the virus pool in the world. So it's in our interests here in Canada to shrink that virus pool as quickly as possible, and the best way to do that is to vaccinate the whole world as quickly as possible.
I think Canada has a moral as well as a practical reason for donating vaccines to the rest of the world, either through COVAX or through other mechanisms: directly to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, or through the WHO. I think that is very important.
At least on paper, Canada has purchased more vaccines per capita than any other country. If all those vaccines are eventually approved by Health Canada, we will have the opportunity to donate a lot of doses to COVAX or to the developing world directly. I think the important point is that we step up and donate those vaccines to the developing world. Thank you.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Bernstein, just following up on that, there's a question of timing, as well, isn't there? Do you think that rich countries should be vaccinating their young and healthy before frontline health care workers and vulnerable people are vaccinated in developing countries?
Alan Bernstein
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Alan Bernstein
2021-02-22 13:03
Right now, the vaccines have not yet been approved for young people here in Canada. Again, I think there is a good argument, both a moral argument and a practical one, that the G7 countries, including Canada, donate vaccines to the developing world initially for frontline health care workers, as you have suggested, Mr. Davies.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-01 11:46
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for their participation.
Professor Gagnon, thank you for accepting the committee's invitation.
You mentioned something that we on the Standing Committee on Health noticed as well. At the beginning of the pandemic, all the experts and researchers told us about the extraordinary level of co-operation in the effort to find and develop a vaccine. The co-operation was certainly there.
The vaccine race has been on since August. Now that it's time to procure the vaccines, all that fine global co-operation and information sharing has gone out the window, and for good. We are nevertheless in the midst of a global pandemic, so borders are problematic. Until everyone on the planet is vaccinated, the problems caused by variants are not going anywhere.
You said this earlier, and you've talked about it in your articles: this way of doing things is disastrous. You said Canada had picked its side.
What could we do differently to achieve better public health results through a more unified position?
Marc-André Gagnon
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Marc-André Gagnon
2021-02-01 11:47
Thank you for your question.
Take the AstraZeneca vaccine, for example. It was developed by the University of Oxford. Initially, the university had pledged to offer nonexclusive, royalty-free licences for its vaccine, but ultimately went back on its decision, opting to give AstraZeneca exclusive rights to the vaccine.
I read this week that, according to AstraZeneca's CEO, Pascal Soriot, the challenge is vaccinating as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, because the virus is spreading and mutating in parts of the world where people don't have access to vaccines. The vaccine protection people are acquiring now could drop, and even become obsolete as potential new variants emerge. However, when asked to make the patent royalty-free to provide access to the technology, as initially promised, so more manufacturers could use their facilities to produce the vaccine, AstraZeneca refused. It prefers to operate with licensing agreements.
It's important to understand something. The Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation recently released a scorecard showing that AstraZeneca is currently the most ethical of the COVID-19 vaccine makers and is making every effort to offer accessible licences, but it's still extremely limited. Manufacturers are waiting even though their production lines are ready to go. Not only do they need to be given a compulsory licence and the formula, but they also need to have the knowledge and know-how. That's the only way they can help the effort. Under the current regime, companies seem quite reluctant to transfer that know-how.
What can we do, then? The thing to do would have been to ensure vaccine manufacturing capacity in Canada at the outset. The government made huge investments in Medicago to increase vaccine production capacity in Quebec. VIDO-InterVac, at the University of Saskatchewan, received considerable funding to boost its production capacity. Those are all positive steps, but Canada also needs to take a stand internationally and say that it wants to make the patents royalty-free. We are at war with a virus, so everyone should contribute to the war effort, not oppose initiatives to increase production capacity.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-01 11:50
Isn't that the only way to overcome the shortage? Back in the fall, a number of pharmaceutical companies announced that they had effective vaccines, and similar announcements followed. Is it safe to say that companies rushed to take as many orders as they could but were unable to fulfill them? Now we are caught in this situation. As I see it, the only answer is to democratize vaccine production through licensed patents, so we can produce the vaccines ourselves in the middle term. Do you not agree?
We have to build our production capacity so we can alter vaccines in response to variants, if need be. Pharmaceutical companies will never be able to produce enough vaccines for the entire planet.
Marc-André Gagnon
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Marc-André Gagnon
2021-02-01 11:51
I completely agree.
Early on, the efforts to find new vaccines were impressive. Many were developed. Now, pharmaceutical companies are signing confidential agreements with countries to deliver vaccines. We saw how quickly Pfizer-BioNTech ran into production issues—hence, this week's slowdown.
As for AstraZeneca, in Europe, the situation is much worse. Something of a trade war has erupted between Europe and the United Kingdom. If European countries want to prevent vaccine exports to the United Kingdom, under WTO rules, they have to prevent exports to Canada as well. We therefore find ourselves in a trade war where the companies are no longer able to fulfill their orders.
Countries adopted the strategy of lining up for pharmaceutical firms' vaccines and waiting for their doses, but now the doses aren't coming. What do they do now? It's late in the game to start coming up with new solutions.
Still, Canada has good vaccine production capacity—capacity that could be leveraged if royalty-free licences were offered on patents.
Amir Attaran
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Amir Attaran
2021-02-01 11:53
I think it's a giant omission. As you know, there are many different vaccine technologies. You mentioned the adenovirus-based vaccines. There are two of those—AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson—and they're among the simplest to manufacture. We could manufacture them in Canada. It is a question of having a large vat in which you grow the cells that produce the vaccine. Then you purify the vaccine proteins, and then you formulate them and bottle them and all of that. We could do this in Canada. Contrary to the point of view that intellectual property is a big barrier here, AstraZeneca did license Brazil, Australia, India and several other countries to make its vaccine, and that has been done. Those countries are making the AstraZeneca vaccine. The intellectual property problems weren't that hard to solve. India is supplying it to its people as we speak. Brazil is rolling out the first doses this week. Australia, because it has so little COVID, is taking it more slowly.
This is something that Canada could do. The failure of the government to negotiate to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine back in the summer, as Brazil, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Argentina did, is a cardinal failure of this pandemic. Had we done so, we'd have something more right now.
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