Page 21 - Technology Access Pool News Today

Africa should tackle failures in technology sharing Universities in Africa must be more vocal about the failures of higher education institutions in the Global North to challenge the status quo of innovation- and technology-sharing that is denying millions access to life-saving treatments, Sarai Keestra, a research coordinator of the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines in the United Kingdom has told University World News. In an e-mail exchange following a commentary she wrote in BMJ G...

BY FEMI FALANA The most telling lesson of the coronavirus pandemic is that “no one is safe until everyone is safe.” It is an indisputable proof of our biological connectedness which is even more consequential for life and livelihood than the digital connectivity that is the buzz word of the millennials. As it happens in any pandemic, the coronavirus does not respect geo-political boundaries; neither is it restricted by socio-economic and cultural divides. The virus infects the poor and the ...

By Parsa Erfani, Lawrence O. Gostin, and Vanessa Kerry May 19, 2021Reprints CRISTINA QUICLER/AFP via Getty Images The Biden administration’s announcement to support an intellectual property (IP) waiver for Covid-19 vaccines was a monumental step toward improving the access to them in low- and middle-income countries. But without further action, it will be little more than a symbol. The waiver allows companies to produce Covid-19 vaccines without fear of being sued by the entity that holds t...

Such calls are well intentioned. Countries like the US and the UK have surged ahead with their vaccinations, cutting their deaths and hospitalizations dramatically. Meanwhile, India is in the throes of a catastrophic second wave as it struggles to vaccinate its enormous population. Ive practiced patent law for 20 years. In that time Ive managed the worldwide patent portfolio for Prevnar 13, the worlds top-selling vaccine before COVID-19, before it was acquired by Pfizer. Ive worked with scienti...

More than 120 countries throughout the world have already done so.

Morals and vaccine market

AstraZeneca: We demand a People’s Vaccine AstraZeneca: We demand a People’s Vaccine As AstraZeneca held its annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday, our youth network launched protests outside the company’s head office in Cambridge, its second largest UK site in Macclesfield and outside Oxford University. We brought our demands for a People’s Vaccine directly to the company so they could not be ignored and our protests were also widely covered in local and national media. These protests w...

At about 7:15 am PT this morning , May 13, 2021, I saw Dr. Mona Nemer’s (Canada’s Chief Science Advisor) tweet (Note: I’m sorry the formatting isn’t better, Maryse de la Giroday@frogheart Does this mean Canada will support a waiver on patent rights for COVID-19 vaccines? Dr. Mona Nemer@ChiefSciCanThe global health crisis of the past year has underscored the critical importance of openly sharing scientific information. We are one step closer to making #openscience a reality around the wo...

Lessons of the COVID-19 Pandemic For Our Collective Humanity, By Femi Falana The sad story is that of the resurgence of vaccine nationalism, with all its perils for our shared humanity. In sum, the response to the crisis should, therefore, be based on the principles of compassion, cooperation and multilateralism. In fact, apart from the pandemic, other global issues such as climate change, social inequality, drugs and identity crisis require cooperation and multilateral approaches because they ...

An Essex woman was one of four people arrested during a protest outside the headquarters of pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca’s headquarters. The demonstration was held in Cambridge yesterday to demand the firm share its vaccine technology across the world. A protester, who held a sign which read “human life not profit,” chained himself to a door while others climbed on to the roof of the entryway and unfurled a banner which read “people’s vaccine not profit vaccine”. Suppo...