Ms Winnie Byanyima:

I will reply to some of the questions that were raised. There was a question about refugees and internally displaced people, whether they will be catered for, and if not, whether the communities of refugees and internally displaced people could turn out hosting new and dangerous variants of the virus. This is the case but there are some good practices. For example, in Jordan, one in every four people is a refugee. It is rolling out its vaccination programme to include refugees and it has the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We also heard from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies last week, which launched a plan to help vaccinate 500 million people globally. There is a need to pay attention to those people with weak citizenship rights and have them vaccinated.

We have looked carefully at the question of capacity in the People's Vaccine Alliance, estimating that the three biggest vaccine producers - Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford AstraZeneca - are producing enough vaccines for only 1.5% of the global population, which tells us how small is the supply. We are looking at how much capacity is being used by the other big vaccine producers. When we started probing, we saw some of the production companies moving very fast to try to conclude agreements with some of the major vaccine producers in Europe and America to license them. They have really been holding on to their technology and know-how to first try to scoop as much profit as possible before they license others. That is why we need the pressure.

The capacity is there and we will estimate those figures. This capacity is not only in Europe and North America.; there is also capacity in the emerging economies. There is huge capacity in India, with some companies licensed to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, for example. There are other Indian producers with capacity that is sitting there. There is also capacity in Indonesia, China, Russia and so on. There is capacity and we will estimate those figures but we must put pressure on those companies.

I also wanted to speak to the question of the pandemic being really more devastating than HIV/AIDS. I agree. In developing countries like ours in Africa, the economic devastation is worse than the health devastation. For some reason our people have not had as many deaths or even infections as in Europe. Perhaps it is because the populations are younger or we have suffered many infectious diseases previously but nobody knows yet. Infection rates are lower and deaths are fewer. Nevertheless, the economies had to be closed completely so the economic devastation is huge. People have lost jobs and their income so they have nothing to eat. It is devastating. The need to recover is global and this pandemic is more damaging than HIV. Every life is important.

Many countries and governments support CTAP, but they have not yet signed up to the Costa Rica resolution.

I think that has to do with some fear of the pharmaceutical companies because this is now about survival of the fittest and booking supplies with a few companies. I suspect that some governments did not show up to sign up to the common technology access pool because that would be seen as perhaps "anti" the pharmaceutical companies. I suspect one is seen as in conflict with the other. While some governments have signed on to the People's Vaccine Alliance and the People's Vaccine Alliance is demanding support for C-TAP, the same governments have not signed up to C-TAP or the Costa Rica resolution. That tells us they will sign onto the People's Vaccine Alliance, which is campaigning for C-TAP, but they will not go to the WHO pool. Something there suggests that one is in conflict with the other.