TY - JOUR T1 - A vaccine tax: ensuring a more equitable global vaccine distribution JF - Journal of Medical Ethics JO - J Med Ethics DO - 10.1136/medethics-2021-107418 SP - medethics-2021-107418 AU - Andreas Albertsen Y1 - 2021/10/13 UR - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2021/10/12/medethics-2021-107418.abstract N2 - While COVID-19 vaccines provide light at the end of the tunnel in a difficult time, they also bring forth the complex ethical issue of global vaccine distribution. The current unequal global distribution of vaccines is unjust towards the vulnerable living in low-income countries. A vaccine tax should be introduced to remedy this. Under such a scheme, a small fraction of the money spent by a country on vaccines for its own population would go into a fund, such as COVAX, dedicated to buying vaccines and distributing them to the world’s poorest. A vaccine tax would provide a much-needed injection of funds to remedy the unequal distribution of vaccines. The tax allows for a distribution that, to a lesser degree, reflects the ability to pay and is superior to a donation-based model because it minimises the opportunity for free-riding. ER -