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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is among those who signed the petition. Here he visits a treatment center for covid-19 patients in late April.
A future covid-19 vaccine must be available to all peoples of all countries free of charge, requiring a number of current and past world leaders on a call.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan are among 140 who signed the joint letter, which is sent ahead of the annual meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) next week. .
– We ask that the Minister of Health at the annual meeting support a national vaccine against this disease. Authorities and international partners must come together around a global guarantee that when a safe and effective vaccine is developed, it is produced rapidly in large quantities and made available to everyone, in all countries, free of charge, says the letter.
– The same goes for all treatments, diagnostics and other technologies for covid-19, says more.
Fury in france
The letter comes after the fury in France over the fact that the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi came out and said that the first shipments of a covid-19 vaccine were reserved for the United States. The head of the French company said the United States had the first right because the country’s authorities contributed to financing the vaccine. On Thursday, the company withdrew the statements and assured that a vaccine will be available for all countries.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg previously said that Norwegian authorities are not trying to win advance contracts or buy companies that develop crown vaccines, but instead focus on international cooperation, including through the Cepi vaccine alliance.
Norwegian contribution
– What we are doing now is trying to build an alliance so that it becomes a distribution of this. Rather than being such that someone should seize the vaccine that is. Therefore, it is important to produce the vaccine in multiple countries so that no country is in control, Solberg told NTB earlier this month.
In total, Norway is committed to contributing NOK 13 billion to global vaccine work.
The European Commission has also supported international cooperation.
“The covid-19 vaccine should be a global common good and access should be reasonable and universal,” spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker said at a press conference on Thursday.
