Opinion

COVID 19: health crisis or ethical crisis?

photo_camera COVID 19

Should intellectual property rights for vaccines be waived in the context of a global pandemic? This is the question that challenges each and every one of us, and even more so the power of this world. A little more than a century ago, this problem would not have arisen in this way, but our era is one of capitalism, big pharma, and lobbying. The days when vaccines were considered a universal good are long gone. Today, intellectual property rights have become a real brake on equal rights in health.  The president of South Africa did not hesitate to call the situation 'apartheid'.  

Despite thousands of deaths every day, the pharmaceutical industry asks the European Commission to continue to support innovation through the defense of an international framework for patents rather than the lifting of intellectual property rights. “This could prove to be dangerous and counterproductive. We might first see a decrease in production and in the long term this could lead to a disengagement of investments in solutions against pandemics,“ underlines Nathalie Moll, director-general of the European Federation of Industries and Pharmaceutical Associations (EFPIA). 

Like it or not, and as its name suggests, the pharmaceutical industry is first and foremost a business. And as in any business, profit is paramount. 

However, depriving scientific research of its ethical component is one of the deeds or rather misdeeds of our century for which we have not finished paying the price. As the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining and this crisis is pushing us, above all, to question our current healthcare model. 

The unbearable images of deaths and pyres in India have caused an uproar around the world, but unfortunately, they will not stop laboratories from giving up their patents on innovation.

Recently, the United States surprised many by supporting the suspension of vaccine patents to address the current crisis as soon as possible. “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic demand extraordinary measures,” said US Foreign Trade Representative Katherine Tai. The administration's goal is to get safe and effective vaccines to as many people as possible as soon as possible. While securing vaccine supplies for the American people, the administration will continue to intensify its efforts, working with the private sector and as many partners as possible, to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution. It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce these vaccines. 

France's position is different from that of the US and more nuanced. It proposes to supply vaccines to countries with shortages at cost price and "the short-term priority remains the donation of doses and their production in partnership with the poorest countries," stressed French head of state Emmanuel Macron.

However, lifting patents alone cannot be effective in containing the pandemic. And no laboratory on the continent has, for example, the technological capacity to produce vaccines like Pfizer or AstraZeneca without heavy investment. 

But generic production is already underway. South Africa's largest generic company, Aspen Pharmacare, produces hundreds of millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson. For the record, South Africa, which is among the African countries most affected by the COVID-19 crisis, was unable to use the AstraZeneca vaccines ordered earlier this year because of their ineffectiveness against the so-called South African variant. 

However, the Serum Institute of India was to produce millions of doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine for low-income countries. Unfortunately, in view of the explosion in the number of contaminations in India, the vaccine has not been able to reach the international level and is consumed locally. 

In the midst of all this chaos, China is doing well, supplying cheap vaccines - sometimes to African countries. However, despite the WHO's recognition of Sinopharm's vaccine, France has officially stated that it will only accept vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency as part of a vaccination pass, and Sinopharm and the Russian vaccine, Sputnik, are not part of the batch, even though European countries such as Hungary use them. The EU has retreated since the start of the pandemic and is becoming an inaccessible fortress imposing its own rules and laws. 

Nearly two years into the pandemic, the global health crisis is becoming more political and, above all, ethical.