Only helping the rich

Be afraid (if you’re in the developing world):

On 14 August, this World Health Organisation draft on pandemic flu preparedness was leaked on Wikileaks.

This passage is perhaps most striking:

”˜global influenza vaccine manufacturing capacity is insufficient to meet demand in a pandemic and [”¦] in the absence of a multilateral system of benefit sharing, some Member States, particularly developing countries, can neither afford nor access the vaccines’

In other words, ”˜there isn’t enough vaccine to go around, poorer countries will be priced out of the market, and millions will die in the event of a pandemic’. Basically, this passage amounts to the blackmailing of developing countries into accepting the WHO’s particular ”˜virus sharing’ system.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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