Jesuit In Policy, from Jesuit Conference. Office of Justice and Ecology.
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May 14, 2021
Lately, I've been thinking about the early church. Out of a shared belief in Jesus Christ, disparate communities across the Middle East and Mediterranean forged a new faith. As St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, "For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others" [Romans 12:4-5].
Each member belongs to all the others. Some 2000 years later, our world has changed greatly, but this teaching remains true. Especially now, amid a global pandemic, our lives are bound up with people across the world. If one member of our body is sick, we all suffer.
That's why I have been working closely with global Jesuit partners to promote vaccine access for low-income countries. And we've made some progress! Last week, following significant advocacy efforts, the Biden Administration announced that it will support waiving coronavirus vaccine patent rights. If approved by the World Trade Organization, this temporary waiver would give companies around the world access to the information needed to produce their own generic versions of the coronavirus vaccines.
To date, 87 percent of all vaccine doses have been administered in high-income or upper-middle income countries, leaving low-income countries disproportionately unprotected. The WTO waiver is the first step to remedying this inequality. But negotiations with the WTO are slow-moving, and many other wealthy countries have not yet backed the waiver, including the UK and EU member nations. Alongside my Jesuit colleagues from India and Africa, I continue to urge these WTO member countries to support the waiver. We also need greater cooperation from patent-holding pharmaceutical companies to ensure the transfer of vaccine production technology.
I thank God for the work that has been done to vaccinate vulnerable communities here in the U.S. and the wider Global North, and I pray that with greater global vaccine production, we may end this pandemic.Your brother in Christ, 
Fr. Ted Penton, SJ
Secretary
Jesuit Conference Office of Justice and Ecology