Following Sanofi’s announcement that US patients would get first access to a vaccine because Washington is helping to fund the research, the European Union (EU) has asserted that any vaccine against coronavirus must be available fairly to all countries.
Ministers in President Emmanuel Macron’s government slammed the move by the French multinational pharmaceutical company as “unacceptable”.According to Stefan de Keersmaecker, European Commission spokesman, “The vaccine against COVID-19 should be a global public good and its access needs to be equitable and universal”.
The EU organized a global fundraising effort this month for vaccine research which won around $8 billion but Washington pointedly refused to take part.”For us in one word it is very important that, as the virus is a global virus, that we work on this globally,” said de Keersmaecker. The European Medicines Agency said that a vaccine might perhaps be ready in a year’s time but labelled this an “optimistic” scenario.
