Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna make a total of $ 65.000 a minute thanks to their vaccines against covid-19, according to a report by the People's Vaccine Alliance, which promotes the most equal distribution of vaccines in the world.
Pharmaceutical companies raised this money by selling the vast majority of their vaccines to rich countries, to the detriment of less developed countries, where the rate of vaccination against covid-19 remains small, the organization complains.
According to official estimates released by the companies, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna will have pre-tax profits of $ 34 billion this year, or more than $ 1.000 per second, $ 65.000 per minute or $ 93,5. , $ XNUMX million a day.
In contrast, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson sell their vaccines at a cost price.
"It is immoral for some companies to make millions of dollars every hour, at a time when only 2% of people living in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated against covid-19", Complained Maaza Seyum of the Office for Africa of the People's Vaccine Alliance and the African Alliance.
The organization also criticizes these three pharmaceutical companies that, despite the $ 8 billion in public funding they have received, they have rejected all calls to transfer vaccine technology to low-income countries through the World Health Organization. which could increase global supply, lower prices and save millions of lives. "
The People's Vaccine Alliance, which has 80 members including Oxfam and the United Nations Office on AIDS (UNAIDS), calls on pharmaceutical companies to immediately lift patents on vaccines against covid-19.
Source: RES-EAP