Five US senators have called for global access for vaccines developed by Pfizer, Modern as well as Johnson & Johnson, media reports said. Five top democratic senators wrote to chief executives of these medical giants asking them to make their vaccines available globally as Covid-19 cases continue to surge in many parts of the world.
The letter read, “Covid-19 has infected over 148 million people and killed over three million globally, with hundreds of thousands of new cases and thousands of deaths being reported daily.”
Those senators are Elizabeth Warren, Edward J Markey, Tammy Baldwin, Jeffrey A Merkley, and Christopher Murphy. They further said, “Though Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and other companies have developed safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines, the uncontrolled spread of coronavirus poses significant risks to global vaccination efforts: as the virus proliferates, it is evolves increasing the risk of a variant developing that renders vaccinations ineffective.”
Recently, Covid-19 cases have surged in India. The country has reported more than 300,000 thousand cases each day for the last two weeks. The senators also noted that India, which produces the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, has so far exported more than 66 million doses globally this year.
“Though wealthier countries, including the US, have successfully secured vaccines and have made significant strides in vaccinating their populations, many middle- and lower-income nations have less access to vaccine doses. A recent study estimates that unequal global vaccine distribution could result in a gross domestic product loss of $1.2 trillion annually for the global economy,” the senators added.