Building Momentum to Improve Access to Medicines and Vaccines

Children living in low-income countries are 10 times less likely to reach their fifth birthday compared with those in high-income countries, according to UNICEF.

As a father, I find it devastating to read statistics like this. The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a glaring spotlight on the significant health equity gap caused by fragile health systems, resulting in uneven access to medicines and vaccines around the world. The pandemic has only widened global health inequities, with the greatest toll on vulnerable populations in low-resource settings. At the same time, I believe that the partnerships formed during the pandemic have positioned the global healthcare ecosystem better than ever to close this gap. The question is: What can be done to drive lasting change?

Understanding the Current State of Access

According to WHO and the World Bank, at least half of the world’s population cannot obtain essential health services, and for millions of these people, paying for healthcare expenses would push them into extreme poverty, which is defined as surviving on less than USD $1.90 per day.

The Access to Medicine Foundation publishes a biennial report focused on 20 of the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical companies and how they have improved access to medicines, vaccines and diagnostics in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In its 2022 report, the organization found an improvement in R&D access planning for all companies—that is, the companies had developed plans to identify and address barriers to access during the research and development phases of product development. However, this progress is uneven, with some low-income countries still overlooked.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that every person has a part to play in managing the global disease burden—in helping to ensure that the next virus doesn’t become a deadly pandemic. We also have a part to play in improving the accessibility of vaccines and treatments. This is a responsibility I take very seriously, and it has framed the way my leadership team and I approach our work at Pfizer.

How Pfizer is Improving Access in LMICs

At Pfizer, we have focused our efforts on global programs, initiatives and partnerships that strengthen health systems to make them more resilient and responsive for communities in need, aiming to help drive progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We’re working in partnership with governments, civil society and the private sector to help ensure that health systems have the capacity to address the needs of the most vulnerable populations. Here are some of the ways we are doing this:

• ?Realizing “An Accord for a Healthier World”: Our initiative, “An Accord for a Healthier World,” offers our full portfolio of medicines and vaccines for which we have global rights on a not-for-profit basis to 1.2 billion people living in 45 lower-income countries. We are working with governments and global health partners to enable quick and sustainable access to those medicines and vaccines, including technical expertise, medical training, diagnostic capacity, innovative financing, and more. For example, Rwanda has received delivery of nine Pfizer medicines and vaccines for the treatment of certain cancers, infectious and inflammatory diseases. In collaboration with the Rwandan Ministry of Health, Pfizer has also provided professional healthcare education and training to support the delivery. Collaboration is also underway with the Ministries of Health in Malawi, Ghana and Senegal.
• Innovating Medical Delivery Systems: A key part of strengthening health systems is ensuring that medicines and vaccines complete the “last mile” of their delivery routes. Since 2019, we have been working with the US company Zipline to develop new drone technology for delivering medicines to remote communities around the world. Our partnership has enabled nearly 150 essential medicine products to reach more than 2,000 health facilities and 15 million citizens in rural Ghana. This is not a commercial venture for us. Rather, this delivery system is intended to increase supply chain efficiencies so that any companies’ essential medicines and medical products can reach people when they need it, no matter where they live.
• Supporting Community Health Workers: Per research from the UN, at least half the world’s population does not have access to the healthcare they need due to economic, social and geographic factors, as well as significant labor shortages. Community health workers (CHWs) are critical to filling this gap. They possess the cultural and social knowledge to ensure that healthcare is tailored to local needs. They are trusted community-level educators, organizers, and mobilizers for health initiatives and programs. The Global Health Innovation Grants (GHIG) program, supported by The Pfizer Foundation*, supports CHWs and their organizations that work to drive innovative community-based health initiatives. Since its launch in 2016, GHIG has helped train more than 80,000 health staff and supported 35 organizations in 28 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, providing care for more than 6 million patients.

Through Pfizer’s and The Pfizer Foundation’s partnerships with governments, leading healthcare providers, public health experts, patients, and their advocates, we are working to address some of the most pressing health needs of more than 4.3 billion people living in low-income countries. But we’re not satisfied with 4.3 billion. We want every person on the planet to have ready access to the medicines and vaccines they need—so that someday soon, a child born in a lower-income country has just as much of a chance of reaching their fifth birthday as a child born in a wealthier nation.

Pharmaceutical companies alone cannot drive improvements in global health equity without partners in other sectors and industries. In part two of this series, I take a closer look at these types of partnerships.

*The Pfizer Foundation?is a charitable organization established by Pfizer Inc. It is a separate legal entity from Pfizer Inc. with distinct legal restrictions.