Physical Health United States Project #31024

Free the Vaccine for Covid-19!

by Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Corp

Project Report | Apr 4, 2023
Wrapping up a tremendous project

By Justin Mendoza | Executive Director, UAEM North America

Free the vaccine has been one of the most impactful projects led by UAEM student leaders to date.

Working alongside the Center for Creative Activism, we mobilized more than 700 volunteers around the world to fight for access to vaccines developed by the people and for the people.

These efforts have not ended, but they're taking a different shape, which means we'll be wrapping up this GlobalGiving project at the end of April.

As a part of the People's Vaccine Alliance, Free the Vaccine advocates are continuing to push for the world to democratize the development of vaccines.

In March, UAEM's Free the Vaccine leaders even sent in a public comment to the United States International Trade Commission to encourage use of TRIPS Flexibilities to free the vaccine.

In shrot, the U.S. Government is investigating whether or not to keep letting nations all over the world have access to vaccine production technology, which is essential to stopping COVID-19 everywhere, and essential to creating a true people's vaccine for the world.

We stand firmly with lower- and middle-income countries and people all over the world who need access to the vaccine.

You can read our full comments here.

Your support let's us fund the research from this work, and let's UAEM Continue to fight to free the vaccine.

Although we will be wrapping up this project at the end of April, we hope you'll consider supporting future projects that we launch, including a push to support student research, empowerment projects on campuses everywhere, and of course, continuing to fight for a world where everyone can afford the medicines made with public dollars.

Links:

Our Comments to the USITC

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Oct 11, 2022
Summer Training and Actions!

By Maanasa Gurram | Free the Vaccine UAEM Student Lead

Lemonade stand! Tayyiaba (Left) & Maanasa (Right)

Sharing a brief update on our Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 campaign for globally accessible Covid vaccines and treatments.

Our Free the Vaccine campaign Season five took place during the Summer of 2022, bringing together a team of global, experienced activists to design actions around the UN General Assembly in September 2022. We held two calls weekly with participants to brainstorm, design, and plan as well as weekly organizer calls with leadership to guide the team. We worked with two overarching goals: to make COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines, sustainably priced, available to all, and free at the point of delivery and to grow the access to medicines movement.

But to get there, let’s take it back to the beginning. As of July 2022: 51% of people in high income countries had access to COVID-19 vaccines; as did 31% of people in upper-middle income countries; 14% of people in lower-middle income countries, and just 1% of people in low income countries. Vaccine inequity is running rampant, even as high income countries like the United States boldly proclaim that the “pandemic is over.”

We began our season by learning about the ongoing inequities in vaccine access, and left the season’s participants with a key question:

SO WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO ABOUT IT?

That’s where our Free the Vaccine missions come in. Each week, our participants meet to complete a mission - one week the mission is to make a message, the next week it might be to design a flyer.

Three actions were planned and executed. Firstly, our lemonade stand was an in-person interactive and engaging action to educate the public and spread awareness of vaccine apartheid. We set up a lemonade stand offering a chance at free lemonade. Participants spun a wheel with different countries, and they would receive or not receive lemonade based on what country they landed in. This mimicked global vaccine access or lack thereof in different countries. We did two iterations of this action on September 23 and September 24, and we were successful in engaging the public. Secondly, we designed a Wordle ("We Don't Talk About Covid") graphic to be projected onto a building in New York City in a high-trafficked area. We recruited a projection team to help us successfully execute this action on September 21st. Lastly, we are in the process of creating a parody video of the popular song from Encanto ("We Don't Talk About Bruno") named "We Don't Talk About Covid."

We have had a busy summer of actions and the fight for global health equity continues.

Onward!

Links:

See our past actions on the Free the Vaccine online Exhibit

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May 10, 2022
Rally outside Moderna!

By Maanasa Gurram | Free the Vaccine UAEM Student Lead

Sharing is caring!

Sharing a brief update on the latest action to fight for global equity in access to vaccines!

On Thursday, April 28th, activists from Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 in conjunction with partners and advocates from People's Action, Health GAP and others gathered in Boston in front of the pharmacutical corporation Moderna to fight for a people’s vaccine. This was the day of the Moderna shareholders meeting at which Moderna’s profits were to be announced. As the COVID-19 crisis continues to rage in the Global South, an inequitable and vastly insufficient global vaccination effort threatens the lives of people around the world, including in the United States. Moderna generated over 6 billion USD in revenue for the first quarter of 2022 and made $12 billion in profits in 2021.

Students, politicians, doctors, lawyers, and individuals from all different walks of life came together to share their stories and demand that Moderna put people over profit. The number of deaths from COVID-19 are now estimated to be over 15 million according to the World Health Organization and despite high income nations trying to open up, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are still rising in many parts of the world. None of us are safe until all of us are safe.

Moderna holds the power to greatly increase access to the vaccine and decrease the burden of Covid-19 by sharing the science and sharing the intellectual property rights to produce the vaccine. Activists rallied for three days, where they participated in actions to increase the pressure on Moderna. Actions included marching from Galaxy Park to Moderna Headquarters, calls to the CEO of Moderna, leading teach-ins, calls to individuals with power to share the wealth, a vigil, and much more. The efforts brought attention to the urgency of the situation and the call to action given to Moderna in doing its part to end the pandemic and our "Sharing is Caring" carebears made they own appearance again!

Onwards!

Boston Moderna Protest

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