An ethical analysis of the impact of covid-19 vaccine patents on the accessibility of vaccines in developing countries

Abstract

In this thesis, I did a retrospective ethical analysis of the covid-19 pandemic, and specifically did the analysis through the lens of developing countries (LMICs). The thesis question that I aimed to defend was that the patenting of covid-19 vaccines, especially for developing countries during a global pandemic was not ethically justified. One of the components that created bottlenecks and exacerbated vaccine inequity was vaccine patents. In the context of covid-19, high-income countries (HICs) quickly secured competitive agreements with the manufacturers of the new vaccines (Usher, 2020). In contrast, the first vaccine to become available to the first group of South African (a developing country) healthcare workers, which was the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccine, only became available on 17 February 2021 (Mwai, 2022). In this thesis, I argued using rule utilitarianism to illustrate that this led to serious harms that could not be ethically justified. I also argued using distributive justice that LMICs ought to have been prioritised during the distribution of covid-19 vaccines as they had more need for the vaccines, as HICs could afford to pay for the costs of vaccines. I then argued that there are other alternatives to share costs in the event of future pandemics, through the formation of global health partnerships (GHPs). The GHPs would help to subsidize costs for vaccine manufacturers, and ensure that the financial effects of waiving patents are shared. I used the following keywords to conduct my searches: covid-19, global pandemic, vaccine nationalism, vaccine equity, vaccine innovation, patents ban, patenting, patent waivers, pandemic preparedness etc