Who should control the vaccines?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Calls are rising for a waiver of patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines - but would it do anything to accelerate their rollout in the developing world?
Manuela Saragosa speaks to an advocate of the "People's Vaccine" campaign, which aims to end the control of the major pharmaceutical companies. Els Torreele of University College London says much of the research and development of these vaccines was publicly funded anyway, and the need to negotiate patent agreements prevents other companies from rapidly scaling up vaccine production.
The need to speed up the rollout is testified to by the South African professor of vaccinology Shabir Madhi, who points out that his own country has yet to begin immunising the general public. But Thomas Cueni of the global pharmaceutical industry body, the IFPMA, says they are already on course to vaccinate the world within a year.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: A man is vaccinated at a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya; Credit: Robert Bonet/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC with me, Manuela Saragossa. |
| 0:07.0 | Coming up, a world that's fully vaccinated against COVID-19. |
| 0:10.9 | It could be nearer than you think. |
| 0:12.9 | The world could be vaccinated by end of March next year. |
| 0:17.3 | I would actually expect that maybe next year we may have more vaccines than we need. |
| 0:22.0 | That's coming from the pharmaceuticals industry, a rare bit of good news amid the pandemic. |
| 0:27.3 | But there are still rising calls for COVID vaccines to be stripped of their patents. |
| 0:32.0 | I think we cannot continue in a way that, for instance, African countries just have to wait until there are |
| 0:38.5 | enough crumbs falling from the table of the wealthy countries that have been hoarding doses. |
| 0:43.0 | They need to be able to produce their own doses. |
| 0:45.7 | So what does the pharmaceutical sector say to that? |
| 0:48.4 | That's coming up here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:57.6 | Hello. |
| 0:59.8 | Hi, I'm here for the vaccine. |
| 1:02.0 | At 12 o'clock. |
| 1:09.8 | That's Dory getting his second COVID jab there in southeast London this week. |
| 1:15.6 | I will be getting to your arm, so up for arm, so you need to stop. Yes, so that's the good point. |
| 1:17.1 | So we're doing the right arm of the area. |
| 1:20.6 | Doi is one of many here in the UK. |
| 1:23.6 | The total number of COVID vaccinations in the country now stands at over 54 million. In fact, |
| 1:29.7 | about 35% of the UK population is now fully vaccinated, meaning they've had both their first |
| 1:35.9 | and second dose. Great news for Great Britain. But what about elsewhere in the world? South Africa, |
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