Meghan Markle, Prince Harry hit back against Vaccine equity

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have called out big pharma companies for failing to deliver doses amid glaring vaccine equity worldwide.

The duo teamed up with WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to send out the notice via an open letter to world leaders at the G20 Summit.

There they wrote, “When the leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations met at the G7 Summit in June, they collectively announced that 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines would be sent to low- and low-and-middle-income countries to help vaccinate the world. Pharmaceutical companies have pledged almost the same.”

The letter is available to read on WHO’s official website and it goes on to say, “Yet, as several nations still don’t even have enough vaccines for their own health workers, the world is left asking: Where are the doses?”

“Of the almost 7 billion doses that have been administered globally, just 3 percent of people in low-income countries have had a jab so far. Where are the rest?”

“COVAX, the initiative designed to help achieve fair global access to COVID vaccines, has been promised 1.3 billion doses to be donated for the low-income countries it supports, yet it has been able to ship only 150 million — 11.5 percent — to date. Where are the rest.”

The concluding statement drove the point home even further and read, “Each dose represents a real person — a mother, father, daughter, or son — who could have been protected,” they said. “Each of us come from very different places, backgrounds, and life experiences, but we share a common goal: to tackle global inequity.”