By Jennifer Doherty

Law360 (April 9, 2021, 6:10 PM EDT) -- The leader of the World Trade Organization called for broader distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in developing countries Friday, saying the public health measure would provide the greatest boost to pandemic-ravaged economies.

Speaking at a panel discussion hosted by the World Bank, WTO Director-General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, an expert in development economics and the first African person to lead the global trade forum, highlighted World Bank data indicating that 150 million people could backslide into extreme poverty as a result of the ongoing pandemic.

"Before we talk about economic impact, we have to look at the health impact, because the biggest thing for economic recovery for developing countries is getting the vaccines that they need in order to deal with the pandemic," Okonjo-Iweala said at the event titled COVID-19: Vaccines for Developing Countries.

The diverse nature of COVID-19's impact on national economies, affecting industries from tourism to commodity exports, has meant that even developing countries that were well-integrated into global value chains have seen entire revenue streams collapse over the past year, she continued.

Okonjo-Iweala's stance was echoed by fellow panelist and former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro H. Brundtland, who also led the World Health Organization from 1998-2003.

"We recognize that equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines should be a crucial issue. It's a moral imperative. It's a public health imperative and an economic imperative," Brundtland said. "The rapid development of vaccines for COVID-19 has been remarkable. But it is all the more devastating that while science has advanced, the world has stalled. In terms of equity, the poorest countries are seeing virtually none of the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines."

While Okonjo-Iweala emphasized the progress that has been made since the 1990s to reduce the share of the world's population living in extreme poverty from 36% to 10% before the start of the pandemic, Brundtland framed the past three decades differently.

"We are stuck where we have been for 30 years, reliving the unequitable responses to previous emergencies," said Brundtland, who now co-chairs the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board.

For the board, equity in vaccine distribution would have meant sending each country enough doses to cover 2% of its population from the initial rounds of vaccine production, to be given to health care workers and the most vulnerable members of the population.

Instead, Brundtland said, most developing countries have been left in the lurch, with less than 1% of their populations currently vaccinated, though manufacturers have already produced almost 475 million vaccine doses, almost 60% more than needed to meet the board's recommendation.

In the United States, 18.7% of the population was fully vaccinated as of Friday, and more than 178 million doses had been administered, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, as well as the European Union and the United Kingdom, blocked a proposal in March before the WTO's Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS Council, that would lower the cost of vaccines and COVID-19 treatments by temporarily waiving intellectual property rights attached to the products.

The two other participants in Friday's panel Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and Mari Pangestu, the World Bank's managing director of development policy and partnerships, emphasized the learning and research developments that had been accomplished throughout the pandemic. But for Brundtland, the response to date was manifestly inadequate.

"Many of the poorest countries have yet to receive a single dose. The lack of global mechanisms for vaccine development and access are at the heart of the problem," Brundtland said.

In line with Brundtland's critique, Okonjo-Iweala laid out a three-pronged approach for heading off catastrophes in the future with more robust monitoring, financing frameworks that prioritize preparation as well as response and safeguards to keep supply chains open.

"What is very difficult now in the world is the fact that preparedness is probably a tiny percentage — maybe 1% — of the monies we spend on response. If you look at the trillions of dollars we've spent in this pandemic, just responding to the health and economic issues, if we had spent maybe $100 or $200 billion on preparedness before that we would have been better off," the WTO leader said.

Brundtland again backed Okonjo-Iweala's position, challenging the international community to craft a financing mechanism based on commitments from countries of the global south and vaccine producers so that middle and low-income countries would be guaranteed doses ahead of the next crisis.

"The ugly truth is that at this stage of the COVID-19 response, we are seeing how money talks," she said. "In the absence of appropriate global financing structures, resources are flowing to the rich. We will pay the price in terms of economic damage, global instability, and a prolonged pandemic."

Representatives for USTR and the EU did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Law360 Friday.

--Editing by Amy Rowe.

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