Speaking to the press on January 25, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General reiterated his warning about the cost of COVID-19 vaccine nationalism. He referred to a recent economic modelling study by the International Chamber of Commerce which shows that advanced economies stand to lose trillions of dollars through vaccine nationalism – more than previously thought.
The new study – The Economic Case for Global Vaccinations – commissioned by the ICC Research Foundation has found that the global economy stands to lose as much as $9.2 trillion if governments fail to ensure developing economy access to COVID-19 vaccines, as much as half of which would fall on advanced economies.
Terry McGraw, ICC Research Foundation Chair, said: “This report proves the economic interdependencies of developed and developing countries and the essential requirement that we work together to multilaterally coordinate the distribution of vaccines, tests and therapeutics.
“No economy can fully recover until we have global equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The path we are on leads to less growth, more deaths, and a longer economic recovery.”
— Study author, Ṣebnem Kalemli-Özcan, Neil Moskowitz Endowed Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Maryland, College Park
John WH Denton, ICC Secretary General, said: “The new year presents us with an opportunity to correct course – to consign vaccine nationalism to the past and ensure multilateral efforts have the funding and support necessary to succeed.
“As this study shows, ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines is not only the right thing to do – to do otherwise is economically irresponsible. International business needs a fully funded ACT Accelerator.”
Trade partners
The study clearly demonstrates the economic case to invest in the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, the global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.
While other analyses have highlighted the economic costs of vaccine nationalism, this new study is the first to incorporate both supply and demand shocks, domestic and foreign, at the sector level, for an open economy operating within global supply chains. The integrated analysis shows the full possible ramifications of vaccine nationalism, which is significantly higher than previous best estimates. The paper demonstrates the economic costs of suboptimal vaccine distribution to the international trading system at the global scale, showing that even if a particular country has access to the vaccine, it “experiences a sluggish recovery with a drag on its GDP” if its trading partners do not have such access.
Strikingly, a $27.2 billion investment on the part of advanced economies – the current funding shortfall to fully capitalize the ACT Accelerator and its vaccine pillar COVAX – is capable of generating returns as high as 166x the investment.
The study also shows that those economies and sectors with a high degree of international exposure will bear the brunt of economic losses.
Dr Tedros said: “Vaccine nationalism might serve short-term political goals. But it’s in every nation’s own medium and long-term economic interest to support vaccine equity.
“Until we end the pandemic everywhere, we won’t end it anywhere.
— Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General.
“As we speak, rich countries are rolling out vaccines, while the world’s least-developed countries watch and wait.
“Every day that passes, the divide grows larger between the world’s haves and have nots.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded all of us that health and economics are closely connected, and that we are all in this together. We’re family.”
