Muqeem Ahmad, London,
The European Union has announced that it will distribute 100 million doses of the Covid 19 vaccine to poor countries by the end of this year.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that we will do everything possible to protect the world from this pandemic.
Earlier, the Director General of the World Trade Organization Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that “Even removing intellectual property rights from the Covid 19 vaccine will not reduce the gap between demand and supply of vaccines in rich and poor countries unless technology is available”.
South Africa and India have demanded that members of the pharma company remove copyrights to increase vaccine production for poor countries.
According to the World Health Organization, only eight doses of the vaccine are available for every 1,000 people in Africa, while the third largest country in the world has 150 doses per 1,000 people.
The US president has backed the removal of Intellectual property rights to the vaccine, while the EU and other developed countries are of the opinion that this IP removal will not increase production. The major pharmaceutical companies want to maintain the restriction of intellectual property rights so that they can make more profit.
