The future of vaccination in Latin America: Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic caused millions of deaths around the world. This dramatic balance requires governments, international organizations, vaccine manufacturers, and the scientific community itself to take stock of what has been done and what could have been done better. In this sense, the tremendous inequity in access to vaccines, the main tool to deal with the pandemic, deserves deep reflection and a set of actions to be carried out by low- and middle-income countries. Among them, the construction of a joint effort to produce their own vaccines and the reconsideration of the bases that govern the intellectual property rights of vaccines and medicines, which harmed equitable access to health, with the consequent loss of many lives that could have been saved.