NHS at 73: Government’s global vaccination obstruction an “assault” on NHS founding principles
Date: 5 July 2021
Campaigns: Pharma
Vaccine equity campaigners have accused the government of “rejecting the values that make our NHS great” by “obstructing” efforts to vaccinate on the world on the 73rd anniversary of the UK’s National Health Service.
The UK government is blocking efforts to temporarily waive intellectual property rules on Covid-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments that would allow low and middle-income countries to produce their own vaccines.
Global Justice Now warns that allowing the virus to spread in these countries will lead to new variants that could “derail” the UK’s vaccination programme. That would be “an assault on the NHS’s founding principles of comprehensive, universal healthcare, and an insult to staff who have got us through this pandemic”, the group warns.
It comes after the United States and France joined more than 130 countries supporting an intellectual property waiver. The move was first proposed by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organisation more than eight months ago.
Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now, said:
“Thanks to the incredible work of NHS staff, the UK’s domestic vaccine rollout has been a huge success. But today, on the service’s 73rd anniversary, our government is obstructing efforts to vaccinate the world, rejecting the values that make our NHS great.
“The government is blocking global efforts to waive intellectual property rules on Covid-19 vaccines that would allow low and middle-income countries to produce their own Covid-19 vaccines. It’s a move that would unlock the world’s unused capacity to produce Covid-19 vaccines, rapidly vaccinating the world and ending this pandemic.
“Allowing the virus to spread in these countries will lead to new variants that could derail the UK’s vaccination programme, sending us back to square one. That would be an assault on the NHS’s founding principles of comprehensive, universal healthcare, and an insult to staff who have got us through this pandemic.”
Image: Gary L Hider/Shutterstock
