An ethical framework for global vaccine allocation

Abstract

The Fair Priority Model offers a practical way to fulfill pledges to distribute vaccine fairly and equitably

Global, regional, and national estimates of target population sizes for covid-19 vaccination: descriptive study

“…Important doi: 10.1136/bmj.m4704 | BMJ 2020;371:m4704 | the bmj questions remain about equitable and efficient distribution of covid-19 vaccines because many low and middle income countries lack covid-19 vaccine research, development, and production capacities. 16 To ensure equitable access to covid-19 vaccines, COVAX (the vaccine pillar of the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator) has been established, with global cooperation to ensure availability to higher and lower income countries. 17 Additionally, because there will probably be an initial period of vaccine shortage, experts in the US 16 18 and the United Kingdom 19 have developed country specific interim frameworks for covid-19 vaccine allocation and distribution.…”

Are asylum seekers, refugees and foreign migrants considered in the COVID-19 vaccine discourse?

“…Although governments will be the initial recipients of the COVID-19 vaccines, fair distribution within each country must reflect a moral concern for the ultimate recipients and should be guided by the following three principles: (1) benefiting people and limiting harm, (2) prioritising the disadvantaged, and (3) equal moral concern. 25 This 'fair priority model', proposed by Emanuel et al, 25 accommodates asylum seekers, refugees and foreign migrants more explicitly as it prioritises the disadvantaged. In this approach, Emanuel et al 25 propose that a fair allocation of the COVID-19 vaccine requires distributing the first doses to those population segments where it is possible to save the greatest number of life years, then considering also the disability that can be prevented by the vaccine and the amount of poverty and aggregate economic damage the vaccine can prevent, and finally distributing the vaccine to reduce transmission rates as far as possible.…”

“…25 This 'fair priority model', proposed by Emanuel et al, 25 accommodates asylum seekers, refugees and foreign migrants more explicitly as it prioritises the disadvantaged. In this approach, Emanuel et al 25 propose that a fair allocation of the COVID-19 vaccine requires distributing the first doses to those population segments where it is possible to save the greatest number of life years, then considering also the disability that can be prevented by the vaccine and the amount of poverty and aggregate economic damage the vaccine can prevent, and finally distributing the vaccine to reduce transmission rates as far as possible. A truly ethical proposal toward the COVID-19 vaccine distribution should accommodate asylum seekers, refugees and foreign migrants, treating all people equally and helping them get vaccines when they cannot do so on their own.…”

Who is running faster, the virus or the vaccine?

“…The WHO reiterated that after passing all safety tests, vaccines would be distributed to both high-income and lowincome countries through the COVAX project, the global vaccine alliance that aims to deliver about two billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to 156 countries by the end of 2021 (WHO 2020b). To ensure fair distribution and prevent hoarding of COVID-19 vaccines, some researchers proposed a Fair Priority Model (Emanuel et al 2020;Liu et al 2020). Based on an ethical framework, the model aims to achieve the most effective allocation of vaccines by transcending economic, political and ethnic barriers.…”