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Vaccines: Macron for donations to poor countries but against the lifting of patents

2021-04-23T23:41:27.823Z


The President of the Republic announced the sending to Africa of 500,000 doses of various vaccines by mid-June.


Emmanuel Macron on Friday called on countries with vaccines to "

share

" them with poor countries, especially Africa, but again opposed the lifting of patents, as claimed by India and South Africa , NGOs, left-wing parties and personalities.

"

The time has come to share

" vaccines within the framework of the WHO Covax mechanism, he pleaded in a recorded message, during a conference organized by the WHO (World Health Organization) for the first anniversary of the "

accelerator-A

" that gave birth to Covax.

Read also: Virus: Yemen receives a first batch of vaccines via Covax

France, he announced, has just sent first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to West African countries this Friday and will give at least 500,000 doses of various vaccines by mid-June.

We have one in six people who have received at least one dose of vaccine in Europe.

We have one in five people who have received it in North America.

And besides that, in Africa, it is less than one in a hundred.

This is unacceptable,

”he said.

"Technology transfer"

"

Today I am calling all my colleagues

" from countries which have doses "

to be committed to sharing

". "

The target of 5%

" of given doses "

will be exceeded, as far as we are concerned, before the end of the year,

" he said. On the other hand, he was again opposed to the idea of ​​temporarily lifting the patents on vaccines, as demanded by many NGOs, unions and personalities as well as countries such as India or South Africa, to the Similar to what South African President Cyril Ramaphosa asked on Friday before the WHO.

We hear a lot about the transfer or absence of intellectual property.

The subject, as we know today, is not that one.

It is that of technology transfer, the mobilization of production capacities.

Because the bottleneck is there,

”said the French president.

"

I call on vaccine producers to initiate this process,

" he added.

License Agreements

On Wednesday, 170 former heads of state or government - including François Hollande, Gordon Brown or Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - and Nobel laureates such as American economist Joseph Stiglitz or French virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi urged American President Joe Biden to support the lifting of patents.

Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, pleaded for the mobilization of production capacities all over the world, via license agreements and technology transfers.

Read also: Covid-19: the Covax Mechanism to achieve real equity in vaccines

"

The very credibility of multilateralism in health today depends on our ability to quickly deliver doses on the ground: in Latin America and South America, in Africa, among others, also in the Pacific

", concluded Emmanuel. Macron, while Covax deliveries remain limited. Thanks to Covax, some 40 million doses of vaccine have already been distributed in 114 countries.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-04-23

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