Whereas global poverty was on a downward trend in pre-pandemic times, multiple crises as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and a global recession have led the World Bank to note that, almost 100 million more people were added to poverty in 2020, a majority of them living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Although vaccination drives are a positive step, the pandemic is far from over and will not be over just by inoculating the world.

Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, lives have been lost, healthcare systems came under unprecedented pressure, and the global economy took a nosedive, upending countless livelihoods around the world. However, developing countries have faced significantly sharper challenges than rich nations, largely because the pandemic is not just a health emergency there, but more so a social and economic catastrophe. For instance, the pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity, with rising food prices leaving a greater impact in low- and middle-income countries. In 2020, the pandemic wiped close to 255 million jobs, with losses exceptionally higher in the global South.

Disruptions caused in food supply by the pandemic, among other factors, may soon double hunger levels in the Global South. This is due to supply chain problems, export restrictions by on food grains, hoarding of commodities, a disruption in the supply chain of food commodities due to fear of COVID exposure among workers, limitations on the movement of migrant labour, reduction or loss of family income and inflation in food prices. A commentator notes that disruptions in the supply chain including short-term undersupply, hoarding, and overcharging have resulted in a global price rise in the food basket of 20 to 50 per cent. Even in countries with a high GDP, economic inequalities meant lower access to health which led to disproportionately high numbers of COVID cases amongst marginalized social groups. For instance, in Spain and in the United States, neighbourhoods of working class and racial minority groups, respectively, have suffered relatively more.

The pandemic also has implications for individual rights such as the right to life, freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and protection against discrimination. Governments around the world are navigating a complex tension between patient rights and citizen privacy on one hand, and public safety and health on the other. These coercive public–curtailing freedoms in the interest of containing the virus — run the hazard of turning into absolutist measures if they are used disproportionally, extended beyond their scope or prolonged indefinitely.

The right to health is also under threat. Although it is guaranteed as a right under international covenants, it often comes down to the ability of states to provide resources to meet that ideal. For instance, the 1997 judgment by the South African Constitutional court in the case of Thiagraj Soobramoney vs. Minister of Health (Kwazulu-Natal) highlighted that a right is not absolute and that a State can only guarantee those rights for which it has commensurate resources available. It held that non-emergency medical treatment is qualified by the availability of resources for the progressive realization of such a right.

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, there were countless media reports showing severe shortages of oxygen, beds and other medical necessities. These crises force those families to spend their entire life savings or incur debt. Many have resorted to crowdfunding portals for financial support. This health crisis will likely further complicate the economic picture in those countries. As the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi noted, there is a variance between a right and a service-delivery model of development.

The situation as regards healthcare calls for a paradigm shift whereby, in lieu of regarding it as an expenditure, healthcare is sought as a high-return investment which can materially reduce out-of-pocket spending and at the same time raise output. In economist and 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences laureate Amartya Sen’s words, a basic minimum of protections is essential to justice and to further one’s freedoms and capabilities, health and access to healthcare being one such indicator.COVID-19 is not gender-blind; the response should not be either. Governments ought to target health and social protection responses for single mothers with children, widows, or female farmers in the form of cash transfers or other adequate safety nets that are equitable and just.

India, the “pharmacy of the developing world,” plays an important role in providing low-cost life-saving medicines to developing countries, where the key to a critical IP protection regime is maintaining a balance between economic incentives for innovation and not deprive marginalized groups of medicines. A UN panel advised that a higher threshold of international agreements in the form of TRIPS World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights-plus commitments would compromise access to health technologies with serious implications for low-income groups. For instance, repudiating compulsory licensing would directly affect the supply of low-cost generic medicines, which are a lifeline to developing countries.

According to the scientific publication Our World in Data, as of January 12, 2022, in low-income countries, less than 10 per cent of people have received at least one dose against COVID-19 while in some countries with high GDP, upwards of fifty per cent of the total population (e.g., United Arab Emirates – 91 per cent; Spain – 81 per cent; Chile – 86 per cent; France – 74 per cent; United States – 62 per cent) have been fully vaccinated. Its statistics also indicate that in India, roughly 46 per cent of the total population has been fully vaccinated until January 12, 2022, whereas in the entire continent of Africa, less than 10 per cent of the total population have been fully vaccinated. A number of States such as India and South Africa have insisted that the COVID-19 vaccine be made a public good by temporarily waiving IP rights by World Trade Organization and mandating emergency production. Otherwise, as argued by Fatima Hassan, a South African social justice activist and human rights lawyer, the situation risks becoming “vaccine apartheid.”

Similarly, global leaders and philanthropists have urged the relaxing of IP rules for the vaccine, that vaccination and the distribution thereof should not rely on market forces, and that vaccines should first go to people who need them most and not the highest bidder. A pandemic of such magnitude begs global solidarity and cooperation. Otherwise, we are likely to face second-order and third-order effects that will be hole we will take years to dig ourselves out of. We should know that unless we are able to vaccinate the last human in the remotest corner of the planet, and do so as we remedy the social fallout, we will not triumph against the pandemic. (The Leaflet — IPA Service)