Vaccine inequity in instagram posts

By Cece Cherrat, Melisa Eraslan, Jade Si-Ahmed

This post is part of a series of opinion pieces in diverse mediums focusing on the theme “What makes you mad about global health?” These submissions are by McGill students who were part of the course PPHS 511 Fundamentals of Global Health in Fall 2021.

The biggest obstacle to ending the COVID-19 pandemic is vaccine inequity; all countries should have equitable access to the vaccine! We are here to raise awareness about and advocate for global vaccine equity.

In the context of our creative participation assignment, our group decided to create an instagram account (@vaccineinequity) to post informative and educative posts about the COVID-19 vaccine inequity that is happening around the world. From the very beginning, this pandemic has been characterized by stark inequities between HICs (high-income countries) and LMICs (low-to-middle-income countries). Populations in the Global South have suffered from a lack of access to diagnostics and treatments related to COVID-19. The same phenomenon persisted after vaccines were developed, and world leaders fail to understand the importance of equitable access to care. We have to understand that nobody is safe from COVID-19 until everyone is safe. As the World Health Organization says: “If the vaccine isn’t everywhere, this pandemic isn’t going anywhere.” By creating an Instagram account, we hope to create a simple way for people to inform themselves about the issue of vaccine inequity and what they can do to advocate for vaccine equity worldwide. On our platform, we started off by providing our followers with a bigger-picture view on global health, then the concept of vaccine inequity and a general COVID-19 timeline. Then, we dove into more specific topics such as booster doses, statistics, the new omicron variant, ways to advocate, etc.

Evidence for vaccine inequity is everywhere–it is very evident that rich nations are hoarding the vaccine supply when looking at the statistics surrounding vaccination rates. As of today, around 54.2% of the global population had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. However, for low-income countries, this rate is just 5.8%. In some LMICs, less than 1% of the population is vaccinated! 83% of the COVID-19 vaccines administered globally have gone to high and upper-middle-income countries while only 0.2% have gone to LICs. The evidence for vaccine inequity is appalling and urges for action.

Since SARS‑CoV‑2 has spread across the world in 2020, multiple variants of the virus have emerged in various parts of the world. Many of these variants have materialized in countries of the Global South, where vaccines are very scarce (e.g.: Brazil, South Africa, India). These new, often more threatening strains (for instance, due to higher transmissibility) constantly threaten our vaccine’s effectiveness and scientists rush to understand if new variants have the capability of evading immune response. This means that on top of adding to the COVID-19 burden in the Global South, vaccine inequity puts the entire world at risk of dangerous variants that we may have no defense against. Vaccine inequity prolongs the pandemic. Therefore, the subject of COVID-19 inequity is something that concerns the world’s population as a whole, and we should all do what is within our power to put an end to this situation. Education is the first step towards equity in the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why we decided to create an instagram account to spread awareness about this subject.

References:

Post 1: What is Global Health

  1. “What Is Global Health and Why Does It Matter?” Interdependence: Global Solidarity and Local Actions. https://globalsolidaritylocalaction.sites.haverford.edu/what-is-global-health/.

  2. “What Is Global Health?” Rutgers Global Health Institute. https://globalhealth.rutgers.edu/what-we-do/what-is-global-health/ .

  3. Maguire, Angus. The difference between the terms equality, equity, and justice. 2020. Interaction Institute for Social Change. (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-difference-between-the-terms-equality-equity-and-liberation-illustrated-C_fig1_340777978)

Post 2: What does Vaccine Equity Mean?

  1. “For greater vaccine equity, first fix these misconceptions” Brookings. April 2, 2021. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/04/02/for-greater-vaccine-equity-first-fix-these-misconceptions/ .

  2. Hotex, J. P, Batista, C., Amor B. Y., et al. “Global public health security and justice for vaccines and therapeutics in the COVID-19 pandemic” The Lancet, vol. 39, no. 101053, Sept 1 2021. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00333-3/fulltext .

  3. “COVID vaccines: Widening inequality and millions vulnerable” UN News: Global perspective Human stories. Sept 19, 2021. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1100192.

Post 3: COVID-19 timeline

  1. Buchholz, Katharina. “Infographic: Global Vaccine Timeline Stretches Beyond 2023.” Statista Infographics, August 30, 2021 https://www.statista.com/chart/24064/covid-19-vaccination-timeline-global/.

  2. Ledford, Heidi. “Six Months of COVID Vaccines: What 1.7 Billion Doses Have Taught Scientists.” Nature, vol. 594, no. 7862, June 2021, pp. 164–67. www.nature.com, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01505-x.

  3. Holder, Josh. “Tracking Coronavirus Vaccinations Around the World.” The New York Times, 29 January, 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html.

  4. Kretchmer, Harry. “Key Milestones in the Spread of the Coronavirus Pandemic – a Timeline?” 22 April, 2020, World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-spread-covid19-pandemic-timeline-milestones/.

Post 4: Everything to know about booster doses

  1. WHO Media. “Interim statement on booster doses for COVID-19 vaccination” World Health Organisation, 4 October 2021, https://www.who.int/news/item/04-10-2021-interim-statement-on-booster-doses-for-covid-19-vaccination

  2. “WHO’s Science in 5 on COVID-19: Booster shots - 10 September 2021.” YouTube, uploaded by World Health Organization (WHO), 10 September 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up8HLRpF5OM

  3. Burki, Talha. “Booster shots for COVID-19-the debate continues.” The Lancet. Infectious diseases vol. 21,10 (2021): 1359-1360. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00574-0

Post 5: Video 1

  1. “COVID-19 vaccines - Pandemica series: Hands.” YouTube, uploaded by World Health Organization (WHO), 22 October 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgBUCMx8jsU

Post 6: Underreported deaths

  1. IHME. “Estimation of Total Mortality due to COVID-19.” Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 15 October 2021, wwww.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths

  2. Ghebreyesus, A. Tedros. (@DrTedros). “At least 5 million lives [...] into action”. Twitter, 2 November 2021, https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1455518186732990473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Post 7: Quick Vaccine Facts

  1. “Global COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity: A Shameful Crisis within a Crisis” Union of Concerned Scientists. May 4, 2021. https://blog.ucsusa.org/rachel-cleetus/global-covid-19-vaccine-inequity-a-shameful-crisis-within-a-crisis/.

  2. Rouw, A., Wexler, A. et al. “Global COVID-19 Vaccine Access: A Snapshot of Inequality” KFF. March 17, 2021. https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/global-covid-19-vaccine-access-snapshot-of-inequality/

  3. Ghebreyesus, A. T. “WHO: Rich countries failed in COVID-19 vaccine donation promise” The World Health Organization. Sept 9, 2021. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-09/WHO-Rich-countries-failed-in-COVID-19-vaccine-donation-promise-13pBp9tC3Mk/index.html

Post 8: Dr. Tedros Quote

  1. Ghebreyesus, A. T. “Vaccine inequity undermining global economic recovery” The World Health Organization. July 22, 2021. https://www.who.int/news/item/22-07-2021-vaccine-inequity-undermining-global-economic-recovery#:~:text=Vaccine%20inequity%20threatens%20all%20countries,of%20the%20World%20Health%20Organization.

Post 9: What can be done to tackle vaccine inequity?

  1. Ghebreyesus, A. Tedros. “Five steps to solving the vaccine inequity crisis.” PLOS Glob Public Health, October 13, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000032

Post 10: What is the Omicron variant?

  1. “Covid: New Variant Classed ‘of Concern’ and Named Omicron.” BBC News, 27 Nov. 2021, www.bbc.com/news/world-59438723.

  2. “Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern.” www.who.int, 26 Nov. 2021, www.who.int/news/item/26-11-2021-classification-of-omicron-(b.1.1.529)-sars-cov-2-variant-of-concern.

Post 11: GAVI quotes.

  1. GAVI. “COVAX Vaccine Roll-Out.” Gavi - The Vaccine Alliance, 2021, www.gavi.org/covax-vaccine-roll-out.

  2. Reuters. “COVAX to Deliver about 1.4 Billion Doses over Six Months -Canada Minister.” Reuters, 12 July 2021, www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/covax-deliver-about-14-billion-doses-over-six-months-canada-minister-2021-07-12/.

Post 12: Drawing

  1. Cherrat, Cyrine. Stop Vaccine Inequity! 2021.

Post 13: What can YOU do to tackle vaccine inequity?

  1. “End Vaccine Inequality Now.” Amnesty International, September 22, 2021, https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/end-vaccine-inequality-now/.

Post 14: Video 2

  1. “IVORY TOWERS | #Pandemica Series | ONE.” YouTube, uploaded by World Health Organization (WHO), 25 March 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI97S6Ha26w

Acknowledgments:

We would like to thank Professor Madhukar Pai for setting and sharing this assignment results with us and the teaching assistants Alexandra Jaye Zimmer, Lavanya Huria and Angie Sassi for their support in coordinating the results.

Ethics & EquityMcGill Perspectives on Global HealthCOVID-19, McGill, Ethics & Equity, Opinion