Accessible and affordable medicines: Covid-19: Treatments, but at what cost? By Marisol Touraine and Malebona Precious Matsoso MarisolTouraine
, which promotes innovative projects that promote equitable access to health care, is investing in diagnostics, treatment and triage tools for respiratory diseases.Traditional development assistance programmes, as indispensable as they are, will not be enough. Initiatives are springing up, all of them useful. We must prepare for the time when treatments and vaccines will become available. But these treatments and vaccines must be accessible to all, everywhere and at the same time.
Back then we had to wait almost ten years between these medicines being available in high-income countries and their arrival in less well-resourced countries. In the face of COVID-19, we must act now to ensure that everyone, everywhere, has access to treatment at the same time. This would be a first. The shortage of several important health products and equipment caused by COVID-19 has galvanized and encouraged both governments and industry to cooperate and share technology, and enter into agreements to cooperate and to enable an increase in manufacturing capacity. Already countries including Germany, Chile, Australia and Canada have passed resolutions allowing them to move in this direction.
South Africa itself adopted a policy on intellectual property in 2018 and should prioritize enactment of legislation that allows for the use-all policy tools needed to address urgent public health concerns. Some companies have also said they are ready. The World Health Organization is working to increase transparency of the more than 700 trials ongoing around the world looking into COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.
It is the entire international community that must commit itself and move forward together, in a spirit of solidarity. We call on all the G20 governments and international institutions to make this commitment, along with the World Health Organization. The world needs your dedication to eradicate COVID-19, and to save lives in Europe and around the world.Marisol Touraine, Former French Minister of Health and Social Affairs, and Chair of the Executive Board of Unitaid.
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