WASHINGTON – Responding to the G7 statement today [1], Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said:
“G7 leaders are presiding over global vaccine apartheid. First they handed over control of publicly-funded vaccines to big business. Then they hoarded most of this year’s vaccine doses for themselves. Now, under pressure from countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, they’re proposing to donate some of their surplus vaccines at some undefined point in the future – as if this were a village jumble sale.
“The elephant in the Zoom today was Big Pharma’s patents, which are preventing most countries from producing the vaccines they need. We know these companies are refusing to share their vaccine recipes with the world, preventing the ramping up of manufacturing that we need. It’s time to compel them to. Clearly G7 leaders are feeling some heat over the grotesque inequality of the present situation. We need to turn it up, and make sure they support South Africa and India’s proposal to suspend Covid-19 patents at the WTO next month. It is the fairest and fastest way to accelerate the global vaccine effort.”
