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COVID-19 vaccines, public health goods and Catholic social teaching: Why justice must prevail over charity in the global vaccine distribution


Vivencio O. Ballano

Abstract

Applying the Roman Catholic Church’s set of moral principles on social concerns called Catholic social teaching (CST) on charity, distributive justice,  private property and the common good, and utilising some secondary data and scientific literature, this article argues that establishing distributive  justice for the global distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines must be a priority than donating millions of doses in the name of charity to address vaccine  scarcity. Catholic social teaching teaches that the right to private property is a basic right but has moral limits and is subordinated to the moral principles  on the universal destination of earth’s goods and the common good.


Contribution: The current COVID-19 vaccines are developed by people and  organisations outside the pharmaceutical companies and largely funded using taxpayers’ money. Thus, by virtue of justice, these vaccines must belong to  all nations as global public health goods. Patents are to be suspended to allow poor countries to reproduce the popular vaccines and address the   current vaccine shortage.


Journal Identifiers


eISSN: 2072-8050
print ISSN: 0259-9422