RSS affiliate SJM pitches for scaling up vaccine production, protests against Bill Gates' position on patent

NEW DELHI: Amid demand for a universal vaccination programme to fight Covid-19, the RSS affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) on Friday urged the government to facilitate technology transfer of vaccines including trade secrets to all potential manufacturers. This they said would help to scale up production of both the vaccines - Covaxin and Covishield – which are being currently produced in India.
The SJM also pitched for providing regulatory clearance to start local production of Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, and urged the government to impose a ceiling on prices of Covid-19 medicines and vaccines taking into account the cost of production-based formula.
"Universal coverage can happen only if government procures vaccines without giving a royalty," the SJM national co-convenor, Ashwani Mahajan, told TOI after the outfit held both online and offline protests against the Microsoft founder Bill Gates for his remarks showing reluctance in sharing Covid-19 vaccine technologies with developing countries like India.
"At a time when vaccination is considered to be the only option for safeguarding the large populations, such kind of attempts to block equitable access to vaccines and medicines are deplorable. It’s against the humanity," said Mahajan while referring to Gates’ recent reported remarks.
The SJM activists during the protests demanded the need for trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (Trips) waiver. "The Doha declaration of the WTO unambiguously provides for non-applicability of Trips in emergencies like Covid-19," said Mahajan.
"Though developed countries, who were (earlier) also trying to block IPR waiver for Covid-19 vaccines and medicines, have (now) amended their stance and announced support to India and South Africa’s proposal in WTO, the stance of MNCs and their representative Bill Gates is far from being positive," said the SJM in a statement.
It said, "They (MNCs) are making all out efforts to maximise their profits by exploiting the worst situation faced by the humanity, especially developing and poor countries."
During the protest, the SJM also reiterated its demand from the government to issue either ‘government use license’ or ‘compulsory licence’ to scale up production of medicines like Remdesivir, Tocilizumab and others which are being used to treat Covid-19 patients.