Giving the US priority access to a Sanofi vaccine against the new coronavirus would be “unacceptable,” a French government minister said, reports The Japan Times.
“For us, it would be unacceptable that there be privileged access for this or that country on a pretext that would be a financial pretext,” Junior Economy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said in an interview Thursday on Sud Radio.
The US will likely be first in line should Sanofi succeed in developing a vaccine because the country was the first to fund the French company’s research, Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson said this week in an interview with Bloomberg News. The US, which expanded a vaccine partnership with the company in February, expects “that if we’ve helped you manufacture the doses at risk, we expect to get the doses first,” Hudson said.
Hudson’s comments highlighted the conflicts facing multinational companies and governments in the race to develop a vaccine against COVID-19. More than 140 world leaders and experts signed an open letter released by UNAIDS and Oxfam on Thursday, calling for a “people’s vaccine” as well as treatments that would be available swiftly to all for free.
“Nobody should be pushed to the back of the vaccine queue because of where they live or what they earn,” said South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Health advocates have warned that the race could leave out countries that can’t afford protective doses, making them vulnerable to mass fatalities and economic wreckage, amid signs some countries will give their population priority.
Read more of this Bloomberg report published by he Japan Times.