PostedJuly 19, 2022, 2:52 PM
Public healthPharma advocates for fairer access to vaccines and treatments
The pharmaceutical industry has called on international bodies to better prepare for future pandemics.
A health worker inoculates a police officer with a dose of the Covishield vaccine once morest the Covid-19 coronavirus during a special booster vaccination campaign at a train station in Secunderabad, India’s twin city of Hyderabad, July 19, 2022.
AFP
The pharmaceutical industry on Tuesday called on international bodies to better prepare for future pandemics, insisting on the need to put in place a system of more equitable access to vaccines and treatments. The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed led to large disparities in vaccination levels between, on the one hand, Western countries, vaccinated quickly, and, on the other, poor countries that are much less well off.
“Even now, when there is an abundance of vaccines available, quite a few countries have a vaccination rate of only 10% of their population”, underlines Thomas Cueni, the boss of the International Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Ifpma ), which is launching this initiative.
Desired social contract
Faced with this state of affairs, Ifpma therefore calls on “the G7, the G20 and all the stakeholders of the world community to play their part, in order to guarantee that the inhabitants of all countries have more equitable access to future vaccines. , treatments and diagnostics once morest pandemics, regardless of their place of residence”, she pleaded in a press release on Tuesday.
“Industry cannot go it alone, it requires a social contract. Let the rich countries be ready to tell themselves that they cannot supply themselves exclusively,” adds Mr. Cueni.
Better distribution
The Federation therefore proposes to reserve part of the production of medicines and vaccines in real time, with a view to their distribution to priority populations in low-income countries. In addition, the organization calls for governments to commit “not to restrict trade, not to ban exports throughout the supply chain”.
Indeed, if pharmaceutical laboratories have been singled out, the role of governments, which have notably banned the export of vaccines produced on their territory, has also been implicated as responsible for vaccine inequity.
Other recommended measures
Ifpma manufacturers continue to rely on partnerships between health players, like what happened during the Covid-19 pandemic. They also call for the establishment by the authorities of a network of clinical sites throughout the world, specifically identified to support the rapid development of new treatments and vaccines.
Finally, intellectual property rights must be respected, continues to plead Ifpma. After nearly two years of negotiations, the temporary lifting of patents protecting anti-Covid vaccines was authorized at the World Trade Organization in mid-June, a rare symbolic act, which had been criticized by the federation.
(AFP)
