Despite the right to fair access for all to health services, including the COVID-19 vaccine, the Western countries are turning a blind eye to the daily deaths of thousands of people in order to protect their business interests.
In the first months of the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, the United Nations, predicting what has happened today, warned about the monopoly of vaccines.
The UN General Assembly even issued a resolution that called for fair access to the vaccines which would be built in the future.
Now more than a year after the UNGA resolution was passed, the concerns and predictions of different countries have come true and the monopoly of the production of vaccines has become the biggest hurdle for developing countries in the fight against the pandemic.
A report by the International Federation for Human Rights suggests that only 10 world countries injected some 75 percent of the existing COVID-19 vaccines since mid-February 2021.
The report added that countries such as Canada and Britain have stockpiled vaccines for as much as four doses per person.
While some 90 world countries have welcomed a proposal to the World Health Organization (WHO) by India and South Africa to temporarily suspend the intellectual property rights related to technology, medicine, and the fight against COVID-19, the world is now waiting for the reaction of Western countries that initially rejected the proposal, expressing support for the intellectual property right.
Is it fair to favor the monopoly of vaccines and ignore the deaths of millions of people under the pretext of protecting intellectual property rights?
The West has to choose between its business interests and saving the lives of the people.