Thread by @peoplesvaccine

BREAKING: BIG PHARMA CAUGHT TRYING TO THWART @WHO & PAN-AFRICAN EFFORTS TO MAKE COVID-19 VACCINES

@BioNTech-hired consultancy kENUP called for termination of WHO-backed MRNA hub whilst promoting BioNTech’s ‘paternalistic and unworkable’ proposal.

This is #VaccineApartheid

Their claims forced African biotech companies to waste time defending their work:

“I don’t understand why kENUP... tries to undermine Afrigen’s work...It drains energy that I could have spent making a vaccine”
- Petro Terblanche, MD of Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines

Any remaining pharma apologists can be left in no doubt.

Their priorities are profits, profits, profits.

People's lives, global economies, the disruptions caused by the pandemic, simply do not measure up.

https://twitter.com/GlobalJusticeUK/status/14910718715338424354

“To push for the termination of this life-saving project in order to protect the interests of pharmaceutical companies is shameful, at a time when over 90 per cent of people in the poorest countries still haven’t been fully vaccinated."
- Anna Marriott, @oxfamgb

Pharma companies have refused to support the mRNA hub, unashamedly prolonguing the pandemic.

"The process of making a COVID vaccine would have taken a year with the[ir] help, but without them it will take 3" - Martin Friede, coordinator of Initiative for Vaccine Research at WHO

This is further proof that world leaders leaving pharma companies in charge of COVID vaccinations is cowardly and deadly.

If they do not act urgently, "big pharma will try to bully and intimidate global south manufacturers into submission” - Fatima Hassan of @HealthJusticeIn

"The failure of rich country governments to step in and break these all-powerful monopolies is unforgiveable. They must end their blind faith that profit-hungry pharma corporations will voluntarily do the right thing by humanity.”

Read our full response: bit.ly/3Lhjc8e

Brilliant investigation by @madlendavies for @bmj_latest on how WHO efforts to bring vaccine manufacturing to Africa are being undermined by the drug industry.

We cannot rely on the pharmaceutical industry.
We need a #PeoplesVaccine

bmj.com/content/376/bm…