Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the economic arm of the RSS, held a symbolic demonstration on Friday, raising the demand that all medicines used in Corona treatment including Corona vaccines, should be patent-free.
It also opposed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' statement that he did not agree to patent-free the vaccine in favour of pharma companies. The group also demands that all medicines used in Corona treatment be brought under the government' mandatory licensing and other companies be allowed to produce these medicines.
Also Read: Consignment of COVID-19 aid arrives in Delhi from Poland, Switzerland
Currently, the companies that have developed the vaccines are working 24 hours to manufacture the medicines. However, their production is many times less than the actual demand and at this pace, it may take more than three years to reach the target of complete vaccination in all the countries.
In such a situation, the demand for increasing the production capacity by sharing the formula with other companies, freeing the right to make the vaccine, was put on the WTO platform by India and South Africa, which has also been supported by countries like the US and Russia.
However, a group of countries including Canada, the EU, is still not in favour of sharing the vaccine with patent-free technology. These countries believe that doing so will have an impact on research and development by the Pharma companies that have spent billions of dollars in developing these vaccines and therefore, should have the opportunity to take advantage of them.
Also Read: Centre has to supply 700 MT oxygen to Delhi daily, says SC
Swadeshi Jagran Manch National Coordinator Ashwini Mahajan said that three major companies of the world - Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, have produced the vaccine but they want to make huge profits and want to make the whole world wait for about 2 years.
Swadeshi Jagran Manch believes that if the technology is made open, more than 1,000 companies worldwide will start making the vaccines and medicines. It will be possible for the whole world to vaccinate within the next 6 months at a lower cost. But for this, the vaccine has to be exempted from patent laws and a worldwide public awareness campaign is urgently needed.
More than 195 crore doses are needed to vaccinate 70% of the population in India. Only two companies will not be able to accomplish this.
