Sir, – I refer to the letter (September 28th) from Bernard Mallee of the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association and the letter (September 30th) from Doctors for Vaccine Equity.
If states and companies had acted sooner, we would have been able to protect the vast majority of people in the Global South by now.
Yet they did not.
Less than 1 per cent of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated, compared to 55 per cent in rich countries. Government pledges of redistributing vaccines are very welcome but most will only be delivered in 2022, even 2023, and potentially millions will die as a result.
The risks of new variants will carry on for us all.
Pharmaceutical companies currently hold too much sway on where people live and die from Covid-19.
Voluntary arrangements between companies have to date been completely ineffective, and leave power in the hands of companies to control production and at what price the vaccines will be.
As a result, many countries in the Global South, such as Uganda, are paying higher prices for vaccines than the EU. Biolyse, a Canadian producer was blocked by J&J from producing vaccines for Bolivia. The WTO Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) waiver is needed to radically shift the control of production. It is short-sighted and a move driven by greed to oppose a mechanism which would greatly increase vaccine access in the Global South during a historic global pandemic.
Intellectual property (IP) cannot come at the expense of human rights.
And how can it be said that it will “set dangerous precedent for the discovery of new medicines” when in reality, for Covid-19 vaccines the risks were removed by massive government funding and advance orders? Astronomical profit has already been made and if IP is waived, pharma companies would still receive royalties and compensation.
The Irish Government must support the Trips waiver and redistribute vaccines to save millions of lives. – Yours, etc,
COLM O’GORMAN,
Executive
Director,
Amnesty International
Ireland,
Dublin 2.