[ 2021-02-19 ]

Macron urges Europe to send vaccines to Africa now

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French President Emmanuel Macron has said Europe
and the US should urgently allocate up to 5 per
cent of their current vaccine supplies to
developing countries where Covid-19 vaccination
campaigns have scarcely begun and China and Russia
are offering to fill the gap. 

In an exclusive interview with the Financial Times
by video link from the Elysée Palace, Macron said
African nations were sometimes buying western
vaccines such as those made by AstraZeneca at
“astronomical prices” — two or three times
the price paid by the EU — and being offered
Chinese and Russian vaccines of uncertain efficacy
against new variants of the virus. The Elysée
said the pricing was evidently a problem of sales
by intermediaries, and might equally affect the
vaccines of other drugs companies.

“We are allowing the idea to take hold that
hundreds of millions of vaccines are being given
in rich countries and that we are not starting in
poor countries,” he said ahead of a G7 meeting
by video link on Friday of the leaders of the
world’s biggest economies called by UK prime
minister Boris Johnson.

Source - FT, UK

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