We call for no patents or profiteering on drugs, tests, or vaccines used for the COVID-19 pandemic.
MSF seeks to ensure that the medical tools urgently needed to respond to COVID-19 are accessible, affordable, and available to all countries equally.
All concerned stakeholders—including governments, pharmaceutical corporations, philanthropic organisations and research organisations developing treatments, diagnostics, and vaccines—should take the necessary measures to:
- Ensure the rapid and ample production of medical tools, once approved, and allocate supply based on equity and need.
- Prevent patents and monopolies from limiting production and affordable access.
- Prioritise the availability of the medical tools for protection and treatment of frontline healthcare workers.
- Improve transparency and coordination among governments and other buyers to monitor and mitigate supply chain risks.
We ask governments to prepare to suspend and override patents and take other measures, such as price controls, to ensure availability, reduce prices and save more lives; and to work in solidarity to meet not only their domestic needs but also to support other countries to get access to effective medicines, diagnostics, and vaccines.
We are also supporting MSF’s operational needs and priorities as we open new projects in response to COVID-19 and adapt existing ones to help cope if cases are identified. We are very concerned on how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect people in countries with already fragile health systems.
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Explainers
Share the Tech - Save lives
If BioNTech, Pfizer and Moderna share their mRNA vaccine technology and know-how, via the World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub based in South Africa, millions of new COVID-19 vaccines could be delivered within months.
What you can do to help
Support our #NoCovidMonopolies campaign on social media:
In this unprecedented global emergency, governments have taken an incredibly strong stance at the World Trade Organization (WTO), proposing to allow countries to temporarily waive the obligations of enforcing patents during the COVID-19 pandemic so that everyone, everywhere has access to lifesaving treatments, vaccines, tests and medical tools needed to beat back this pandemic.
Support this action by urging your government to also put lives over profit.
Stay updated
MSF Access brings down barriers that keep people from getting the treatment they need to stay alive and healthy. We advocate for effective drugs, tests and vaccines, that are affordable, available, suited to the people we care for and adapted to the places where they live
Follow our team
Our team has been taking a number of actions to ensure wide and equitable access to emerging treatments, tests, and vaccines so that no one is left behind.
Follow the Access Campaign and our team of experts on Twitter on potential treatments, diagnostics, and vaccines for COVID-19.
We know too well from our work around the world what it means to not be able to treat people in our care because a needed drug is just too expensive or simply not available
