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Big Pharma, which helped to produce the life-saving Covid-19 vaccines, has faced a lot of flak for their unequal distribution of the vaccine worldwide. They have been accused of ignoring the low-income countries in favour of the wealthy. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/16/pfizer-license-covid-pill-paxlovid/)
While the pharma companies like Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and others have denied these allegations, the impression globally was that low-income countries were losing out because of the inequality. According to some estimates, less than 1 percent of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines were sent to the world's poorest countries.
U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer has announced that it has entered into a license-sharing deal that would allow its Covid-19 drug to be manufactured widely around the globe.
Earlier this month, Pfizer had said that the experimental drug was very effective against the virus claiming that it reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by nearly 90 percent in people with mild to moderate infection.
Pfizer said in a statement that by letting the production of drug by generic drug manufacturers, it could be used in 95 countries. Many of them, amongst the poorest in the world. As part of the agreement, Pfizer will not receive royalties on sales in almost all the countries considered poor, where it will be produced. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/health/covid-pill-pfizer.html)
The Pfizer announcement comes on the heels of another company Merck reaching a similar deal. Merck’s pill was approved recently in Great Britain and its drug will be available in 105 countries.
However not everybody is happy with the Pfizer announcement. For instance, Doctors Without Borders has said that Pfizer should have made the drug available worldwide. The pill will not be available in countries like China, Thailand, Argentina and Brazil. (https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/pfizer-to-share-its-covid-pill-with-poor-countries/6315591.html)
Experts however, say that the announcements and fast rollout of the drug could bring down Covid infections that are still prevalent in many countries worldwide.
Read more:
How Pfizer reached the deal:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/17/pfizer-strikes-deal-to-allow-generic-versions-of-its-covid-pill-for-worlds-poor