Injustice in the international COVID-19 response: lessons to learn

Abstract

Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic surprised even the most economically developed nations. The surprise was not the emergence of a new pandemic, which was already on the horizon of the most attentive health professionals, but its intensity and effects in all countries, even the richest ones. In terms of response, although initiatives such as the COVAX Mechanism (WHO) were encouraged by everyone, they were not sufficient to guarantee minimally fair conditions for responses to the pandemic around the world. Objective: to critically analyze the experience of the COVAX Facility project as an international solidarity project. Discussion: The effects of colonial and neocolonial exploitation and coloniality preserve injustices in political relations and prevent a fairer distribution of resources to combat the pandemic. Pandemics such as Covid-19 have exposed the exploitative nature of globalization: the circulation of goods, people and services around the world generates a vector of capital accumulation directed at central countries, and its effects, for example, the spread of infectious diseases with high infectivity, they penalize the poorest countries even more. Inequalities in access to vaccines and health services between countries are unfair and constitute fertile ground for new viral strains that can be even more transmissible and of greater severity. Final considerations: The social determinants of the health and disease process must be considered when planning responses to health emergencies, both locally and internationally, recognizing that the protection of citizens and communities must be recognized as an ethical imperative. The Anthropocene is a reality, and it is necessary to take care of the planet as a whole, with effectively solidary actions, in terms of reflective solidarity as Dean suggests, if we want to avoid collapse.