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Andrew Stroehlein Profile picture
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9 Dec, 5 tweets, 3 min read
A longer pandemic only benefits:

💰 The pharma monopolies.

🦠 The virus.

The EU & UK are the top allies of both.

Their policy of blocking wider vaccine production, by opposing the #TRIPSwaiver at the WTO, results in the global vaccine shortage that prolongs the pandemic.
"Scientists know that this cycle will prolong the pandemic — but world leaders are still failing to choose the fastest path out."

#TRIPSwaiver
#PeoplesVaccine

Editorial in the science journal @nature: nature.com/articles/d4158…
"It’s an inescapable reality and an almost iron-clad law: the pandemic will not end while vaccine equity is pushed to the margins." - @nature
EU leaders say they will keep blocking wider vaccine production globally as long as they can.

Over 5 million dead…

BILLIONS unable to get even one jab…

Yet enforcing a vaccine shortage during a global pandemic remains the policy.

Deadly madness.

politico.eu/article/omicro…
Hoarding vaccines amid a shortage is ugly.

Maintaining that shortage as a matter of DELIBERATE policy - as the EU & UK are doing by blocking wider vaccine production globally - is even uglier...

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More from @astroehlein

Andrew Stroehlein Profile picture
9 Dec
Thread on the #SummitforDemocracy...
We have our doubts about whether the #SummitForDemocracy will produce any real progress on human rights.

Many of the nations invited are human rights abusers, and we don’t yet know what commitments they've made to improve their records.
The Summit will be an abject failure if nations make human rights commitments that are weak or if they make commitments they don’t live up to.
Read 7 tweets
Andrew Stroehlein Profile picture
9 Dec
Read how these Syrian migrants braved weeks in the freezing border zone…

…and how concerned citizens have to pressure #Poland border guards to actually process asylum claims, instead of sending them back to #Belarus in violation of international law.
politico.eu/article/tale-s…
"They said Belarusian troops robbed them, beat them up and gave them dirty water to drink, which made them ill."

Everyone knows Belarus authorities are inhuman.

And yet, #Poland's policy - supported by the European Commission - is to illegally send people back into #Belarus.
#Belarus manufactured the situation, but #Poland shares responsibility for the suffering. Men, women & children have been ping-ponged across the border for weeks in freezing weather, desperately needing humanitarian aid that's being blocked on BOTH sides.
hrw.org/news/2021/11/2…
Read 9 tweets
Andrew Stroehlein Profile picture
8 Dec
“A third source with knowledge of the delivery said some of the doses arrived within 4-to-6 weeks of expiry and could not be used in time, despite efforts by health authorities.”

They were AZ doses from Europe, supplied via COVAX. AZ vaccine shelf life is 6 months, I believe.
From article: "Vaccine wastage is to be expected in any immunization programme, and in the context of COVID-19 deployment is a global phenomenon," the WHO said in a statement responding to Reuters' questions. It said vaccines delivered with "very short" shelf lives were a problem
All countries have struggled to maximise the use of doses. “In January, officials in Britain forecast wastage of about 10% of vaccines. In April, France's health minister told local media that 25% of AZ, 20% of Moderna & 7% of Pfizer vaccines were being wasted at the time.”
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Stroehlein Profile picture
8 Dec
Only 46% of the world is fully vaccinated.

In many countries, it's less than 10%.

BILLIONS of people have not even had one dose yet.

🔑 The key reason is the vaccine shortage caused by the EU, UK & others blocking wider vaccine production globally.

nytimes.com/interactive/20… Image
As the @nytimes says: "Vaccine doses remain relatively scarce globally, with demand still forecast to outstrip supply through the end of 2021. But concerns around waning immunity have prompted many countries… to start administering additional doses…"
So, we already have a global vaccine shortage caused by insufficient production levels, and demand is only going up.

Leaving pharma monopolies to set those production levels has clearly NOT been working. It's failed to meet current need, and it obviously won't meet future need.
Read 10 tweets
Andrew Stroehlein Profile picture
8 Dec
Let's hope #Germany's new government realises:

🇩🇪 the global pandemic is global;

🇩🇪 the EU policy of blocking wider vaccine production in a pandemic is a disaster;

🇩🇪 we need the #TRIPSwaiver & a #PeoplesVaccine.

cc: @OlafScholz @Karl_Lauterbach

One of Merkel's greatest failures was her backing for the truly scandalous EU policy of blocking wider vaccine production globally.

Germany's new government needs to reverse course, and the sooner, the better.

Read more: hrw.org/news/2021/06/1…

Maintaining an artificial shortage of vaccines during a global pandemic to prioritise profits over human lives is an ugly EU/German policy that means:

1️⃣ a longer pandemic;

2️⃣ more death;

3️⃣ more time for new variants to emerge, including vaccine-resistant strains.
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Stroehlein Profile picture
8 Dec
#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

Police & soldiers have killed over 1300 people & arrested over 10,000 protesters & others.

Systematic post-coup abuses, like those inflicted on the Rohingya, amount to crimes against humanity.

hrw.org/news/2021/12/0…

Why do horrific abuses & mass atrocity crimes keep happening?

Because the perpetrators keep getting away with it.
The problem is one of IMPUNITY, which is unfortunately not a very common word & maybe sounds a bit legalistic, so many people may turn off when they read it.

Strange it's not a very common word, though, given it's so central to so much of what's wrong with the world today. Image
Read 6 tweets

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