The Philippines has sounded the alarm on the significant gap in coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination in the world as 80 percent of the global vaccine supply went to high- and upper-middle-income countries.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) made the statement after Deputy Assistant Secretary Marian Jocelyn Tirol-Ignacio represented the Philippines at the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) session on Multilateral Cooperation to Recover from the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Prepare for Future Public Health Emergencies early this week.
The DFA said during the virtual meeting, the Philippines "championed" a cooperative, transparent, science-based, and coordinated regional and global response for equitable access to vaccines.
In her intervention during the session, Tirol-Ignacio raised concern about how 80 percent of the 3 billion vaccinations worldwide have gone into the arms of people in rich countries.
"Lower-income countries face challenges regarding access and administration of vaccines, and are heavily reliant on cooperation frameworks such as COVAX," she said, referring to the global pooled procurement mechanism for COVID-19 vaccines led by the World Health Organization (WHO).
She urged multilateral institutions such as the WHO, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank Group, and World Trade Organization (WTO) to lead the cause in making vaccines a global public good.
She likewise mapped out the links between the climate crisis, destruction of the natural environment, and biodiversity loss with inequitable access to healthcare and the spread of zoonotic diseases.
Meanwhile, the Philippines reiterated its calls for support towards research and capacity-building activities and the need to cooperate on establishing global and regional early warning systems and other areas of concern.
The DFA said the other sessions discussed multilateral cooperation on the changing geopolitical landscape, multilateral trading systems, developing rules-based cyberspace, climate change, disaster risk reduction, and environmental protection.
President Duterte himself has actually raised the same concern during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Informal Leaders' Retreat on Friday evening, July 16, Manila time.
According to the President, there continued to be a great imbalance in access to COVID-19 vaccines that made the crisis an “unforgiving race to immunity” due to the lack of bold, collaborative responses to the situation.