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COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines
The COVID-19 pandemic has evidenced the chronic inequality that exists between populations and communities as regards global healthcare. Vaccination, an appropriate tool for the prevention of infection, should be guaranteed by means of proportionate interventions to defeat such inequality in populat...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8224034/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34063863 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9060538 |
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author | Bolcato, Matteo Rodriguez, Daniele Feola, Alessandro Di Mizio, Giulio Bonsignore, Alessandro Ciliberti, Rosagemma Tettamanti, Camilla Trabucco Aurilio, Marco Aprile, Anna |
author_facet | Bolcato, Matteo Rodriguez, Daniele Feola, Alessandro Di Mizio, Giulio Bonsignore, Alessandro Ciliberti, Rosagemma Tettamanti, Camilla Trabucco Aurilio, Marco Aprile, Anna |
author_sort | Bolcato, Matteo |
collection | PubMed |
description | The COVID-19 pandemic has evidenced the chronic inequality that exists between populations and communities as regards global healthcare. Vaccination, an appropriate tool for the prevention of infection, should be guaranteed by means of proportionate interventions to defeat such inequality in populations and communities affected by a higher risk of infection. Equitable criteria of justice should be identified and applied with respect to access to vaccination and to the order in which it should be administered. This article analyzes, as regards the worldwide distribution of anti-COVID-19 vaccines, the various ways the principle of equity has been construed and applied or even overlooked. The main obstacle to equal access to vaccines is vaccine nationalism. The perception of equity varies with the differing reference values adopted. Adequate response to needs appears to be the principal rule for achieving the criterion of equity in line with distributive justice. Priorities must be set equitably based on rational parameters in accordance with current needs. The entire process must be governed by transparency, from parameter identification to implementation. The issue of equal access to vaccination affects the entire world population, necessitating specific protective interventions. In light of this, the World Health Organization (WHO) has devised the COVAX plan to ensure that even the poorest nations of the world receive the vaccine; certain initiatives are also supported by the European Union (EU). This pandemic has brought to the fore the need to build a culture of equitable relationships both in each country’s own domain and with the rest of the world. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8224034 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82240342021-06-25 COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines Bolcato, Matteo Rodriguez, Daniele Feola, Alessandro Di Mizio, Giulio Bonsignore, Alessandro Ciliberti, Rosagemma Tettamanti, Camilla Trabucco Aurilio, Marco Aprile, Anna Vaccines (Basel) Commentary The COVID-19 pandemic has evidenced the chronic inequality that exists between populations and communities as regards global healthcare. Vaccination, an appropriate tool for the prevention of infection, should be guaranteed by means of proportionate interventions to defeat such inequality in populations and communities affected by a higher risk of infection. Equitable criteria of justice should be identified and applied with respect to access to vaccination and to the order in which it should be administered. This article analyzes, as regards the worldwide distribution of anti-COVID-19 vaccines, the various ways the principle of equity has been construed and applied or even overlooked. The main obstacle to equal access to vaccines is vaccine nationalism. The perception of equity varies with the differing reference values adopted. Adequate response to needs appears to be the principal rule for achieving the criterion of equity in line with distributive justice. Priorities must be set equitably based on rational parameters in accordance with current needs. The entire process must be governed by transparency, from parameter identification to implementation. The issue of equal access to vaccination affects the entire world population, necessitating specific protective interventions. In light of this, the World Health Organization (WHO) has devised the COVAX plan to ensure that even the poorest nations of the world receive the vaccine; certain initiatives are also supported by the European Union (EU). This pandemic has brought to the fore the need to build a culture of equitable relationships both in each country’s own domain and with the rest of the world. MDPI 2021-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8224034/ /pubmed/34063863 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9060538 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Commentary Bolcato, Matteo Rodriguez, Daniele Feola, Alessandro Di Mizio, Giulio Bonsignore, Alessandro Ciliberti, Rosagemma Tettamanti, Camilla Trabucco Aurilio, Marco Aprile, Anna COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines |
title | COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines |
title_full | COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines |
title_fullStr | COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines |
title_full_unstemmed | COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines |
title_short | COVID-19 Pandemic and Equal Access to Vaccines |
title_sort | covid-19 pandemic and equal access to vaccines |
topic | Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8224034/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34063863 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9060538 |
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