Production firms’ avarice depriving poor nations of vaccines, potentially turning them hotbed for new variants

Oxford University initially promised its vaccine saying it is in public domain and free to be manufactured by anyone with capacity to produce. However, later it backtracked and entered into a deal with British-Swedish Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, transferring all rights with no restrictions on price hike.As on September end this year, only 301 million doses were provided by COVAX in 131 developing countries against its target of two billion doses.The issue of waiving vaccine patents and restrictions on production technology remained limited to much publicized announcements and commitments, instead of providing vaccines to third world countries who need them urgently. Western nations continue to hoard huge stocks.Vaccine imperialism is an indictment of a system that, having created the conditions that unleash pandemics, puts profits ahead of public health and human life. Now, a very similar tension has developed over the pressing need for mass vaccination on a truly international scale.If the pandemic is allowed to rage out of control in countries that lack basic public health and social infrastructure that can contain it, an utter catastrophe may soon appear.Overall, the global distribution has been unequal, unjust, and incompetent. This approach will delay the resolution of the ongoing pandemic and create concerns about humanity’s ability to cooperate to address the even greater challenges ahead.In the past centuries, the West gained affluence by colonizing global South and plundering its enormous resources. Even today, profit greed of Western nations and their pharma MNCs continues to deprive developing world of free mass vaccination in times of horrific COVID pandemic.(IPA Service)Views are personal



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