In a front-page op-ed in the Vatican newspaper’s November 29 edition, Father Giulio Albanese, a missionary and journalist, linked the spread of the Omicron variant in Africa to the low vaccination rate there. 6.7% of Africa’s 1.3 billion people, he wrote, have been fully vaccinated, and 9.9% have received one dose.

“In view of what is happening, Pope Francis has repeatedly called for the temporary suspension of the property right on vaccines,” Father Albanese continued. “But his appeals . . . have fallen on deaf ears.” The priest contrasted this situation with the decisions of Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk not to patent the polio vaccines they had developed in the 1950s.