Hi John,
Together we are championing a new alternative to our broken pharmaceutical system.
Last month, thanks to our supporters donating to our crowd funder, we took a media and parliamentary delegation to the groundbreaking mRNA hub in South Africa.
In response to the shocking levels of vaccine inequality during the pandemic, scientists at the hub have reverse-engineered Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine and are already sharing their know-how with low and middle income countries to increase drug-making capabilities and improve access to life-saving vaccines.
I came away from the trip inspired by the impact and immense future potential this knowledge sharing initiative has to change our broken pharmaceutical system – far beyond Covid-19 vaccines. At the time of our visit the hub had already started to work on a new vaccine against tuberculosis – which remains the world’s leading infectious disease killer, but is vastly under-prioritised by big pharma. This just goes to show what happens when we strip big pharma of its medicines monopolies and put power into the hands of people in the global south.
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Dr Caryn Fenner, Technical Director at Afrigen, gave a tour of the lab
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Having visited the hub I am encouraged more than ever that a better system where the main objective is to cure and prevent illness for everyone can become a reality. In a pandemic dominated by pharmaceutical greed the hub is a huge steppingstone which needs all our continued support.
Our trip sadly coincided with the Queen’s death, which meant that two of the parliamentarians who had agreed to come along had to stay in the UK. Since a considerable amount of time and money had gone into organising the trip by that time, we decided to go ahead as planned. Together with SNP international development spokesman and International Development Committee member Chris Law MP and Guardian journalist Sarah Johnson, we visited the Afrigen lab – the place scientists have been working on this new, more collaborative version of the Moderna vaccine. We heard about their progress and struggles along the way to understand how we can best support this initiative to succeed.
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Chris Law MP and Dr Morena Makhoana, CEO of Biovac, one of the first companies to receive technology transfer from the Afrigen Lab
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We met with civil society activists and community health workers to learn first-hand about their experience during the pandemic and beyond. Hearing about their experiences of vaccine apartheid and a system that prices medicines beyond people’s means underlined the significance and the high stakes for this operation. On returning to the UK, Chris Law lost no time in advocating for the hub in parliament, applying for a special report on the need for global south medicines manufacturing, and pressing for the government to provide its support.
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Community Health worker Sindiswa Zibaye sharing her experience about vaccine apartheid in South Africa
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The Guardian has since published Sarah Johnson’s article telling the story of scientists in South Africa taking matters into their own hands as a result of being let down by rich countries and big pharma. The delegation also was attended by media representatives from across the world and covered by Channel Africa, Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, Radio France International and many more.
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Meanwhile, we have been busy sharing our learnings at public events from Liverpool to Aberdeen, with Navendu Mishra MP calling on the government to back the hub at our World Transformed event in Liverpool. I also pressed the SNP to back the hub formally at their conference. There are more media pieces including in the New Internationalist in the pipeline and we are now ramping up our efforts to get influential politicians to back the initiative.
The battle is far from over, however, as the hub continues to face huge challenges. Moderna has filed several patents in South Africa and continues to refuse to share the technology with the hub. There is no time to lose momentum now and we are doing everything we can to call attention to the hub’s significance and its benefits for the many people who have been let down by rich countries and big pharma for too long. It’s a long journey but the hub shows we are one step closer to achieving real change.
Thank you for everything you do for our campaigns. Together we are continuing the fight for equal access to medicines for everyone in the world.
In solidarity
Tim Bierley
Pharmaceuticals campaigner, Global Justice Now
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