Amid a massive campaign of the Opposition parties questioning the Modi government on the issue of vaccine paucity and medicine scarcity, RSS affiliate Swadeshi Jagaran Manch has kicked off a digital signature campaign asking the government to grant a compulsory licence to more pharmaceutical companies for the production of Covid vaccines and medicines.
"Do you know why vaccines are not available? Why there is a massive scarcity of medicines. It is because the big companies have got sovereign rights to manufacture them. They have got patents. We will have to build pressure on WTO as well to build pressure to ensure universal access to vaccines and medicines to fight Covid-19.
"We will have to build pressure even on the government so that these medicines and vaccines are freed from patients so that it is available to all our countrymen and everybody in the world," Mahajan said in a video message.
"SJM has urged citizens to digitally sign the petition that asks WTO to grant waiver in the provisions of TRIPS to make Covid-19 technology accessible to all, and asks the global pharma companies to voluntarily offer patent free rights," Ashwani Mahajan, National Co Convenor, SJM tweeted.
Apart from patriotic citizens, SJM activists are also reaching out to the top academicians including vice chancellors, prominent professors; scientists, opinion makers, political personalities, past and present bureaucrats, people in policy making and others separately to sign this petition.
Taking the argument further, Mahajan will be delivering a talk on ‘Universal Access to Vaccine and Medicine-A Human Rights Issue’ organised by the Kerala unit of Swadeshi Jagran Manch on Tuesday.
The SJM is of the view that when the government was developing Covaxin with Bharatbiotech, more PSUs could have been asked to produce this vaccine, which would have saved the mounting criticism of the Modi government now over the lack of vaccines.
Earlier SJM took the issue up on social media with the hashtag #Patent_free_vaccine_and_medicine. In a video message, Mahajan said that it is necessary that everyone receives medicines and vaccines to tide over the disease.
"As we are aware that humanity is facing the worst medical crisis these days due to the second wave of the Covid-19. To deal with the situation, the country needs a sufficient supply of vaccines, medicines and different types of medical equipment.
"SJM firmly believes that many Indian manufacturers have the capacity and expertise in the production of essential medicines and vaccines, provided intellectual property rights hurdles are removed with technology transfer and trade secret issues resolved. Patent protection is the major barrier to the generic production of these medicines," it said.
SJM noted that many Indian companies are already making Remdesivir under the voluntary license, however, the quantity is not sufficient to meet the demand, and the price is also very high from the point of view of affordability.
'We understand that the government needs to use the public health safeguards in the Patents Act and permit more companies to produce these medicines in the coming days. As we may be requiring nearly two billion doses of vaccine in the next six months, we need to involve many more companies in manufacturing of these vaccines," the SJM said.
The four-point petition appeals for asking the WTO for granting a waiver in the provisions of TRIPS, and the global pharma companies for voluntarily giving patent-free rights including technology transfer, passcodes and raw material to other pharma manufacturers for the sake of humanity.
SJM has also appealed to the government for taking necessary steps including using its sovereign rights to grant the compulsory license to other pharma manufacturers to produce vaccines and medicines.