Protesters target AZ site
PROTESTERS were outside AstraZeneca’s Macclesfield site demanding the company makes its Covid-19 vaccine more accessible.
The group from Global Justice Now were at the Hurdsfield campus on Tuesday, May 11, to make their point.
Demonstrators were demanding AstraZeneca openly licenses its Covid-19 vaccine and commits to sharing technology and expertise with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
They want the pharmaceutical giant to join the WHO’s Covid-19 Technology Access Pool.
At the rally a Covid-19 vaccine trial participant addressed the crowd as did representatives Global Justice Now and Oxfam.
International speakers, including Pakistani activist Ammar Ali Jan and Brazilian historian Cassia Bechara, were livestreamed into the event.
There was also music from DJ Jameela and
Syrian-born beatboxer Madz.
Nick Dearden, from Global Justice Now, said: “Scientists at Oxford University, a publiclyfunded institution, developed this lifesaving vaccine through a research and development process that was 97 per cent publicly funded.
“The resulting vaccine should have been openly accessible to everyone, but AstraZeneca swooped in and privatised it.
“The UK is reaping the benefits of the highly effective vaccines that are now available, but people in low and middle income countries are still dying daily by the thousands from Covid-19.
“We’re demanding AstraZeneca pool this publicly created knowledge so the whole world can ramp up production of these vaccines.”
The group says
AstraZeneca has so far resisted calls to pool vaccine knowledge.
And in 2020 the company forked out £3.6bn in dividends and share buybacks in 2020 and paid chief executive officer Pascal Soriot £15.4m.
Demonstrators were also at AstraZeneca’s Cambridge base and Oxford University.
AstraZeneca declined to comment when contacted.