Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. pandemic, as defined by the company.
“The performance last year was a major step forward for AstraZeneca. Despite the significant impact of the pandemic, we have delivered double-digit revenue growth to leverage profitability and cash generation,” CEO Pascal Soriot said in a statement. statement on the company’s results in 2020 said. “The constant performance in the pipeline, the faster performance of our business and the progress with the Covid-19 vaccine have shown what we can achieve.”
The coronavirus vaccine that AstraZeneca developed with the University of Oxford is one of several rolled around the world. Given the company’s promise not to take advantage of the vaccine during the pandemic and its commitment “to deliver the vaccine on a non-profit basis, forever in low- and middle-income countries,” CNBC explained Thursday that “current earnings do not include the sale of vaccines.”
Nevertheless, Nick Dearden, executive director of the British advocacy group Global Justice Now, noted that countries have paid different rates for AstraZenenca doses.
“The profits of AstraZeneca today show that the company can easily afford to supply its Covid-19 vaccine at cost price during and after the pandemic,” Dearden said. “But despite this promise, it still needs to address the question of why lower-income countries like South Africa and Uganda pay several times more per dose than the European Union. This is not the ‘fair access’ that AstraZeneca has in its trumpet has no press releases. “
“This global inequality cannot continue,” he added. “If a boost shot is needed to deal with Covid-19 variants, will AstraZeneca commit itself to offering it at the same price to all countries, also as a condition of any sublicensing agreements? It is an outrage that the countries with the least resources are the most charged in the midst of a global health emergency. ‘
As General dreams reported last month, while a Belgian minister revealed that EU members were paying $ 2.16 per dose for the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, and the company said it would tax the price at around $ 3 per dose, South Africa’s Deputy Director – General of Health, Anban Pillay, confirms that the country is quoted by the vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) at $ 5.25 per dose.
‘We have been informed that SII has applied a differentiated pricing system, and given [South Africa] ” is a country with a higher income, and their price is $ 5.25, ” Pillay said Working day at that point. ‘The explanation we have given why other high-income countries have a lower price is that they have invested in the country [research and development], hence the discount on the price. “
South Africa on Sunday suspended plans to take people with the AstraZeneca doses after a limited trial pending a peer review found the vaccine ‘provides minimal protection against moderate Covid-19 infection’ against more infectious variant of the virus in the country.
South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Wednesday that the country will start distributing doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has been ‘effectively proven against the 501Y.V2 variant’ introduced for the first time in South Africa. identified, but which began to spread to other countries.
What about the one million AstraZeneca shots that South Africa received from SII – from which another 500 000 doses were bought –Agence France-Press reports that “South Africa is considering selling these doses or exchanging with countries that have the original strain of the coronavirus, the minister said, insisting that nothing goes to waste.”
Meanwhile, the Ugandan government said last week that it was ordering 18 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from SII, the spokesman said afterward. Reuters that ‘although discussions are ongoing, no price or volume finalization has taken place’ for the country, located in eastern Central Africa.
According to Reuters:
The institute delivers doses of the vaccine to Brazil, Saudi Arabia and South Africa at $ 5.25 per dose.
According to the Ugandan government statement, each person will receive two doses separated by 28 days, and Uganda will buy the vaccine at $ 7 per dose from the manufacturer.
After a report of the rate sparked a wave of criticism, a senior Ugandan health official defended the $ 7 prize last week in Switzerland Health Policy Watch.
“You can not compare prices directly between countries, because there are many factors to consider. Prices must vary anyway,” said Alfred Driwale, director of the Uganda National Expanded Immunization Program (UNEPI), at the Ministry of Health said. “You can not expect a country with a large population to pay the same price. The large country will definitely have a higher bargaining power.”
The debates over dose prices and the rising profits of AstraZeneca come as world leaders continue to come under pressure to abandon vaccine nationalism and focus on vaccinating the world’s most vulnerable people first, regardless of their homeland.
University of London professor Mariana Mazzucato and Costa Rican economist Rebeca Grynspan wrote Newsweek Thursday that ‘the world will not emerge from the pandemic without a national vaccine that can be produced quickly, on a large scale and made available free of charge to all people in all countries. But with national interests dominating over global interests, bilateral transactions continue to undermine the purpose and progress of COVAX, which has provided just enough doses to vaccinate 20% of the population of the 92 participating low- and middle-income countries. ‘
COVAX is a global vaccination effort led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
US President Joe Biden, who has chosen to enter into talks with the WHO and COVAX, ‘has been uniquely placed to take on the challenge of delivering the People’s Vaccine and to turn the lessons of the crisis into a new, transformative one. to build an economy, aimed at the shared prosperity of mankind, ”Mazzucato and Grynspan argue. “This can be achieved by recognizing that ‘health is wealth’, that we are just as healthy as our neighbors and that no one is protected until everyone is protected.”
The Newsweek opinion piece came hours before Biden announced the purchase of 100 million more doses of a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as 100 million more doses of Moderna – both of which require two doses – enabling the US to 300 million people to be vaccinated by the end of this summer.