Covid vaccines. Gino Strada: suspend patents, block production

• In rich countries, one vaccine per second.

  The poor ones have to start

• The Pope at the Angelus: "Pandemic teach us brotherhood to build peace"

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March 11, 2021 Discrimination between poor and rich countries is “petty” in the face of a global phenomenon such as the current one.

For this reason Gino Strada, interviewed by Fatto Quotidiano, says that it is necessary to suspend the patents on anti Covid vaccines.

"There are African states that have received only 50 ampoules - emphasizes Strada -, while some rich nations have bought enough doses to vaccinate their population five times. What do patents have to do with it? They block the increase in production. Obviously those that are there are hoarded by richer countries ". 

 "By suspending the patents - he continues - many companies in possession of the know-how and technologies could instead produce the vaccines by rapidly increasing the availability of the doses".

Strada highlights what is happening: “The pharmaceutical companies that own patents today are unable to produce vaccines for everyone.

The only solution is to open up to the possibility that others can produce them, but this actually means renouncing patents. " 

Finally, the case of HIV reminds us, before the liberalization of patents few retroviral drugs were produced and at very high prices. A situation that, Strada recalls, "has caused an impressive number of deaths. Only with the liberalization of drugs have prices dropped and the infection has been managed. The same goes for Covid. vaccines will not be liberalized I fear - he concludes - that there will still be many deaths ".

For the two organizations, if one person every second is vaccinated in rich countries, it has yet to start in poor countries.

For this reason, more than 100 developing countries, led by South Africa and India, have asked the World Trade Organization for a suspension of the intellectual property of vaccines regulated by the Agreement on the commercial aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPs).

A suspension would remove legal barriers and allow more countries and industries to produce vaccines, increasing the availability of doses and thus initiating a recovery process, including an economic one.