BILL GATES DOES NOT WANT HIGHEST BIDDERS TO GET THE COVID-19 VACCINES
Bill Gates warns against “market forces” driving the availability of COVID-19 treatments.
Billionaire philanthropist, Bill Gates, founder of the tech giant, Microsoft, doesn’t want the COVID-19 vaccine, (once developed) to go to only the wealthiest people or countries as relying on market forces would prolong the deadly pandemic. Though his idea is the right thing to do, by the way things are going right now, it doesn’t seem very feasible. Read on to know more.
Bill Gates was speaking at a virtual COVID-19 conference on Saturday. The International AIDS society hosted the conference. He said that when the drugs and vaccines are developed for COVID-19, the treatments should not be accessible to only those who has advantages in the market. They should also be made available to those who need them a lot and can’t pay for it.
Bill Gates said, “If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidders instead of to the people and the places where they’re most needed, we’ll have a longer, more unjust, deadlier pandemic.” stated by Gates. “We need leaders to make these hard decisions about distributing based on equity, not just on market-driven factors.”
Some people consider that Bill Gates is the perfect man to help make COVID-19 vaccines and drugs widely available as he previously took the pains to make HIV/AIDS medicines available to the world, even Africa.
Others believe that Bill Gates’ words regarding coronavirus vaccines and drugs seem a bit ironic as his Microsoft has had a history of using its market power to thwart any competitors.
Bill Gates’ ideas, though noble, it may only happen in a perfect world because many countries are focused on the welfare of its citizens above the rest. An example of this was when US bought almost the entire stock of remdesivir in June for the next three months when it realized it was among one of the few drugs that can help treat COVID-19.
Alex Azar, Health and Human Services Secretary, said “President Trump has struck an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorised therapeutic for COVID-19,”.
“To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it. The Trump Administration is doing everything in our power to learn more about life-saving therapeutics for covid-19 and secure access to these options for the American people.”
Another example is China, which has potential covid-19 vaccines in development. Although the Chinese president, Xi Jinping has also stated that if a vaccine is developed in the country, it would be a “global public good” and distributed across the world. But a government document stated that the vaccine would be available “once it is developed and deployed in China,” as per the Los Angeles Times .
The World Health Organisation is currently working on a proposal for a Global Allocation Framework for covid-19 related products. The proposal stated that, given the ubiquitous nature of covid-19, all countries should receive an initial allocation as products become available for public use.
“Eventually, prioritisation of geography and timing would be based on a risk assessment of countries’ vulnerability and covid-19 threat,” was written in the document.
The WHO defined “vulnerability” as the vulnerability of health systems and population factors of countries. “Threat,” meanwhile, refers to the potential effect of covid-19.
We think Bill Gates might have had a brilliant idea on fair distribution of covid-19 vaccines and treatments. The Gates Foundation has pledged $250 million to the fight against covid-19 pandemic.
