Fighting over cake while others don’t even have crumbs

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Hi John,

The scramble for vaccines has dominated the headlines this past week as the row between the EU and AstraZeneca and the UK continues to rumble on. This tension has emerged because Big Pharma monopolies have created a scarcity of vaccine doses.

The vaccine is such a crucial health tool to help end this pandemic it should be a global public good - patent-free, produced in mass quantities by as many manufacturers as possible and affordable to all countries.

But we are nowhere near this. Instead, Big Pharma patents and know-how mean that no other company can make or sell the vaccine, leaving the control over pricing and supplies to corporate interests who put profiteering over public health.

Take action and call on the UK to support a proposal to break up Big Pharma monopolies.

Email the government

As the UK and EU fight over supplies, they have also led the way in hoarding vaccines way before the vaccines were even approved. Just last week, the WHO’s top emergency expert condemned countries “fighting over the cake” when frontline health workers in poor countries “don’t even have access to the crumbs”.[1]

The WHO chief warns that almost 40 million doses have been administered in high-income countries. While just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income country. [2] This gross inequality is not just morally reprehensible but is also self-defeating. Leaving large parts of the world unvaccinated will increase the potential for the virus to mutate and prolong this global pandemic for everyone.

The governments of India and South Africa have put a proposal on the table at the World Trade Organisation to change the global rules that are sustaining vaccine inequality. Together with 100 supporting countries, they are urging the World Trade Organisation to suspend patent rules during the pandemic to help all countries access the vaccines and treatments they need to tackle Covid-19.

But rich countries – including the UK – are opposing this proposal. Almost all these rich countries have hoarded vaccines in advance.

Negotiations on this proposal continue this Thursday at the World Trade Organisation. Will you call on the government to support this proposal?

Email the government

This vaccine apartheid only serves the interests of Big Pharma while costing lives and the quickest way out of this crisis. Will you help us to challenge this?

Thank you for your support,

Best wishes

Heidi Chow
Global Justice Now Campaigner

Notes:
[1] WHO says vaccine hoarding 'keeps pandemic burning', Reuters, 29 Januery 2021,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-idUSKBN29Y2AL

[2] WHO Director-General's opening remarks at 148th session of the Executive Board, 18 January 2018,
https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-148th-session-of-the-executive-board

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