Microsoft founder Bill Gates called for providing drugs and vaccine for the Coronavirus, to countries and people who need them most, not to the "highest bidder" in price, saying that relying on market forces would prolong the deadly epidemic.
"If we let the drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidder, instead of the places and people who need them most, we will have a longer, more unjust and deadly epidemic," he said in a video released Saturday at the Corona Virus Conference organized by the International AIDS Association. Leaders need to make these tough decisions about equity distribution, not just the market-driven factors. ”
It is noteworthy that with hundreds of inventions to treat the virus in progress, and governments in Europe and the United States invest billions of dollars in research, experience and manufacturing, there is concern that richer countries can obtain promising drugs against the virus, leaving developing countries struggling with it.
The European Commission and the World Health Organization have warned of unhealthy competition in the scramble for the drug seen as a key to saving lives and resolving the economic chaos caused by the virus, while some officials in Washington have indicated that they will seek to prioritize US residents.
Gates noted the global efforts that started two decades ago to combat the HIV crisis, when countries eventually came together to provide drugs in most parts of the world, including Africa, calling this experience as a model for making Corona drugs available. Widely.
"One of the best lessons in fighting HIV / AIDS is the importance of building this large and fair global distribution system to deliver medicines to everyone," Gates said.