CARICOM Chairman Dr Keith Rowley has reiterated a plea for more equity among countries as global coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination drives offer a way out of the pandemic.

Rowley, who is also prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, said in his keynote address at Thursday’s (February 18) World Health Organization (WHO) media conference that, as richer nations hoard the precious boosters, developing countries have again been left out.

“As there is the understandable rush to receive the vaccines and inoculation of our various populations, we are more than a little bit concerned that there is, or is to be, hoarding and price gouging as well as undue preference in some quarters,” Rowley explained.

“Today on behalf of all small island states…we are to remind that we need the systems of fairness, caring and sharing to work according to a plan so that we can all come out of this dreadful experience guided by principles of equity and compassion,” he added.

Many of these small island states, like the CARICOM group, are being disproportionately ravaged and threatened by COVID-19 and all its variants.

Rowley argued that the inequality is especially true as smaller countries are more often burdened with fragile economies, small populations with limited technical and financial resources, as well as other vulnerabilities. He urged the WHO not to forget smaller countries.

“This being so, we at CARICOM have recently called upon WHO to immediately convene an international convention of the world’s people’s representatives to commiserate, explain, assist and commit to a fair sharing of the available vaccine resources for the benefit of all humankind and not just the privileged, well-heeled few. Today we continue to make that call,” he said.

Rowley’s calls ring true to many current realities as a recent review of pre-purchase itinerary proved that richer countries have sourced hundreds of millions more doses than realistically needed—leaving their poor counterparts struggling.

According to medical trade journal BMJ, high-income countries have secured future supplies of COVID-19 vaccines but that access for the rest of the world is uncertain.

“As of November 2020, several countries have made premarket purchase commitments totalling 7.48 billion doses, or 3.76 billion courses, of COVID-19 vaccines from 13 vaccine manufacturers. Just over half (51 per cent) of these doses will go to high-income countries, which represent 14 per cent of the world’s population,” the article concluded.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres, during a high-level meeting on Thursday, said the fact that 10 developed countries are nearly 75 per cent complete with vaccinating entire populations, even as poorer ones are yet to administer a single dose, is “wildly uneven and unfair”.

The sentiment has been echoed by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has repeatedly called on richer nations to join the WHO’s COVAX programme.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would pledge the surplus of the UK’s supply to developing countries, while French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested the European Union and United States donate between four and five per cent of their COVID-19 vaccine supplies.