Covid vaccines have produced nine new billionaires

The nongovernmental organization Oxfam said Thursday, May 19, that vaccines against the Covid virus have allowed at least nine people to become billionaires, including Moderna CEO Stephane Bancil, and that their accumulated wealth will allow the poorest countries to be vaccinated. These new fortunes appeared Thanks to the huge profits of the pharmaceutical groups that have a monopoly on the production of vaccines against CovidOxfam said in a statement issued before the G20 World Health Summit on Friday in Rome.

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The first two notable fortunes owned by Moderna CEO Stephan Bansel ($ 4.3 billion) and BioNTech CEO and co-founder Ugur Shaheen ($ 4 billion). Eight other billionaires, with ‘Large Equity Portfolios’ In the pharmaceutical companies, they saw a cumulative increase in their fortunes of $ 32.2 billion. ‘Enough to vaccinate the entire Indian population’Adds the press release.

These vaccines have been publicly funded and are expected to primarily be a global public good. “

Sandra Lot-Fernandez, Duxfam, France

These numbers are based on the American magazine’s ranking Forbes It is published by the “People’s Vaccine Alliance”, of which Oxfam is a member, and which brings together organizations and personalities calling for free vaccines against Covid around the world. The cumulative wealth of the nine billionaires was $ 19.3 billion. “It will enable all low-income countries to receive 1.3 vaccinations.”, Who is the “They received only 0.2% of the vaccines produced in the world, especially due to the great shortage of available doses.”According to Oxfam. “These vaccines were funded by the public sector and should be primarily a global public good.”Sandra Lot-Fernandez of Oxfam France said in her statement “Put an urgent end to these monopolies”.

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The European Commission confirmed on Wednesday that the European Union will do so “Building” In the WTO to assess the lifting of patents for an anti-Covid vaccine, which Washington is requesting, but it will first propose measures to quickly increase production. On the previous day, African countries, European countries and other continents, as well as international organizations present at a summit on African economies organized in Paris, called for raising patents for anti-virus vaccines, to allow their production in Africa. But “Key members of the G20, particularly the United Kingdom and Germany, continue to block initiatives to remove intellectual property barriers.” On vaccinations, Oxfam, which also refers to A. ‘An ambiguous position’ France on this topic.