View of runners crossing Verrazano Bridge at the start of NY City Marathon

What the New York City Marathon Can Teach Us About Equitable Access to Vaccines

By Ana Santos Rutschman

What can the New York City Marathon experience teach those reflecting on ways to increase equity in the transnational allocation of scarce vaccine doses?

Quite a lot, it turns out. I explore this analogy in a recently published article in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (JLME), Increasing Equity in the Transnational Allocation of Vaccines Against Emerging Pathogens: A Multi-Modal Approach.

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close up of hands signing contract.

Using Contracts to Lessen Inequities in Access to Medicines in Pandemics and Epidemics

By Sapna Kumar and Ana Santos Rutschman

Research funding contracts can help to safeguard against profound inequities in global allocation and distribution of lifesaving diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines.

During large transnational public health crises, global demand soars for diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines. Although some of these products can be developed within compressed timelines, global production capacity remains limited. Against a backdrop of product scarcity, wealthier countries can out-bid their lower-income counterparts and capture most of the supply during the early stages of pandemics and epidemics. This leaves the vulnerable low-income populations waiting months, or even years, for their turn.

This predictable, inequitable pattern can be held off before the next pandemic. At the research and development (R&D) stage, government funders can bind producers to equity goals through targeted contractual provisions, as we explain in a recently-published Nature Biotechnology article. We summarize our proposals in the following sections. Read More