DEMANDS to end the “vaccine apartheid” currently denying people in the world’s poorest countries protection from Covid-19 were voiced today, as the second anniversary of the World Health Organisation’s pandemic declaration was marked across the globe.

Die-ins, rallies and other protests were staged on every continent, demanding that intellectual property rights, held by profit-driven pharmaceutical companies and backed by governments, are lifted to allow worldwide distribution of vaccines.

The actions came as new research revealed that the total number of deaths may be three times higher than original estimates — 18.2 million, against the official tally of 5.9 million.

In addition to the protests, commemorations for the dead took place across Britain, including moving tributes to more than 1,000 NHS and social care workers who died as a result of their dedication to saving others.

They included commemorations in the region hit worst by Covid deaths, north-west England, where more people have died than in Scotland, Wales and the north of Ireland combined.

The demand for an end to vaccine property rights came in a letter co-ordinated by international campaign the People’s Vaccine Alliance and signed by 130 former world leaders, Nobel laureates, leading scientists, economists, humanitarians, faith leaders, business leaders, and trade unionists.

They urge world leaders “to do what is necessary to end this crisis” and unite behind a ‘people’s vaccine’ based on the principles of equity and solidarity, which is accessible to everyone, everywhere.”

They also warn that “despite what some leaders in wealthy countries would like us to believe, the pandemic is not over.” 

But they say an end to the crisis is “within our grasp” if the pharmaceutical firms and governments give “everyone, everywhere access to safe and effective vaccines.”

They condemn world leaders’ actions as “immoral, entirely self-defeating and also an ethical, economic and epidemiological failure,” leaving billions of people unvaccinated and risking the emergence of dangerous new variants.

The European Union, Britain, Germany and Switzerland are criticised for continuing “to block the lifting of intellectual property rules which would enable the redistribution and scale-up of Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing in the global South.”

Ban Ki Moon, former secretary-general of the United Nations, said: “Rich country leaders are protecting pharmaceutical monopolies on Covid-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics over the health and lives of billions of people.”

More than 1,000 NHS and social care staff estimated to have died from Covid-19 were commemorated by NHS Charities Together at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

Nurse Fliss Pass movingly recounted how she held the hand of a dying patient until their end.

“As nurses we are used to people dying and talking about death, but the pandemic broke me,” she said.

Communities across north-west England who have lost loved ones to Covid were due to come together in Manchester last night for a candle-lit vigil organised by Greater Manchester Hazards and public service union Unison.

Greater Manchester Hazards spokeswoman Janet Newsham said: “We want to remind our politicians and authorities that no workers should have died, no worker should have been exposed to infection risks and that workers are still facing these risks in the workplace every day.”