'If we do not act now, then we will have turned our backs on the poorest people on Earth and the whole world will suffer the consequences.’

Jon Trickett is the Labour MP for Hemsworth

Everyone knows that the pandemic is a threat to our common humanity. Extraordinary efforts have been made by care workers, nurses, doctors, hospital staff, and everyone involved. Perhaps even more extraordinary was the speed and excellence of the scientists, researchers, biologists and all those involved in analysing the COVID and then coming up with a series of effective vaccines.

This work on developing, verifying and then rolling out the vaccine was a collective effort made by large numbers of people working under pressure. Acting on behalf of every one of us, they embarked on a major humanitarian mission.

But who owns the rights to the vaccine and how have they exercised their ownership rights?

Discovery of a mutated variant and share prices in pharmaceutical companies’ skyrocket

In late November, news began to spread about the discovery of a mutated variant of coronavirus in South Africa. As scientists across the world scrambled to understand this new variant called Omicron, something remarkable happened.

The share prices in the pharmaceutical companies that produced Covid-19 vaccines began to skyrocket. In just a week, 8 of the top Pfizer and Moderna shareholders became $10 billion richer.

How can it be that a discovery with such dangerous implications for people across the world can make so much money for a tiny few?  The shareholders saw a new strain of the epidemic as a major money grabbing moment.

Before the pandemic, the big pharmaceutical companies were already some of the richest in the world. The British company AstraZeneca has a market capitalisation of £126.5 billion. This has grown by over 25% since before the pandemic and will result in huge payouts for AstraZeneca shareholders.

Where did the funding come from?

Some will argue that dividends are a deserved reward for investors in the companies who manufactured life-saving vaccines. But where did the funding for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine come from exactly?

At least 97% of the research was funded by taxpayers. In fact, all the Covid-19 vaccines have been funded in some part with public money from different governments around the world. Needless to say, taxpayers are not in line to receive 97% of the profits.

The vaccine roll out by our National Health Service has been momentous. Over 80% of the eligible UK population has received at least two doses.

Now we are seeing an unprecedented effort in the UK and other rich countries to roll out booster jabs in a matter of months. However, it is a very different situation in other parts of the world.

Just 8% of Africans have received two doses

Just 8% of people in Africa have received two doses of a vaccine. In some of the poorest countries on Earth, like Burundi, the figure is just 0.01%.

This is a disaster. Not only will it mean that more lives are lost in poorer countries, but it will result in more deaths in our own country too. As the virus takes hold in unvaccinated countries, new variants like Omicron become increasingly likely.  They in turn will in time come to bite us here.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has long warned of the potentially devastating consequences of vaccines being unevenly distributed between countries. In a world where people move across borders so frequently, new variants are a global problem.

As Gordon Brown warned, the failure of the richest nations to get vaccines to the developing world is “coming back to haunt us”.

Direct consequence of UK government policy

This failure is a direct consequence of UK government policy. In October 2020, the governments of South Africa and India made a proposal to the WTO for a temporary waiver on the intellectual property rights of Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments.

This would make it easier for poorer countries to manufacture their own vaccines. The proposal was backed by most countries across the world, including the United States. However, it was blocked by the UK and the EU.

Let me be clear, many people will die as a result of UK and EU action. They have put the profits of the big pharmaceutical companies before human lives.

This should come as no surprise when the pharmaceutical industry wields so much power in Westminster. It was recently  exposed how it has built up a “hidden web of policy influence” over health related all-party parliamentary groups.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, has defended the UK government’s decision by claiming that waiving patent rights would be “a huge disincentive for pharmaceutical companies” from producing new technologies.

This is total nonsense. What was the 97% of public money spent on research towards the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine if not an incentive?

Insufficient numbers going to poorer countries

The UK government also claims it is distributing large numbers of vaccines to poorer countries. But the numbers are insufficient and in many cases the vaccines supplied have passed their expiration date by the time they reach their final destination.

Now the WHO is predicting a shortfall of 3 billion doses of vaccines in poorer nations in the first quarter of 2022 if the richer nations give boosters to everyone including children.

It’s time for the UK government to put people before the profits of the pharmaceutical company shareholders. It’s time they support a waiver of vaccine patents at the WTO.

As we battle through this latest wave of coronavirus, it is vital that we continue to provide people in our country with booster jabs. However, unless we make more vaccines available in poorer countries then new waves will keep recurring.

If we do not act now, then we will have turned our backs on the poorest people on Earth and the whole world will suffer the consequences.

We must learn the lessons of the pandemic and reassess the laws governing the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals. It is a wonder of modern science that Covid-19 vaccines were produced, but this would not have happened without huge public investment.

Governments should take action to change the rules of the game. Conditions should be attached to funding. Prices should be reduced and there should be permanent changes to patent rules. This would upset shareholders, but it would strengthen our National Health Service and save lives across our country and the world.

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