More than 100 countries are pushing for a temporary waiver of IP rules to boost vaccine access for developing nations. Why hasn’t it been approved?
As India grapples with a devastating Covid wave that has overwhelmed its hospitals, offers of aid, including from Australia, have flooded in from around the world.
The help on offer has focussed on medical supplies such as ventilators, personal protective equipment and even oxygen from India’s traditional foe Pakistan. But the quantity of equipment on offer is dwarfed by the mammoth task of vaccinating the country’s 1.4 billion citizens and the ultimate effort to protect the country from future outbreaks.
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It’s galling to hear pharma cos moan that a temporary waiver would “disincentivize” them from making future vaccines.
Apart from bordering on extortion, it’s ahistorical.
What incentivized them last time was our taxes. Our governments poured billions into developing vaccines.
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