Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-10-22-Speech-4-009"

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"Mr President, within the context of this question to the Commission, I would like to help explore the routes likely to put an end to an injustice that consists in denying 80% of the world’s population access to the A (H1N1) flu vaccine in particular, and to vaccines in general. The problem is not new. In fact, the question comes up every year in connection with the flu season. Generally speaking, new seasonal flu viruses first appear in developing countries. From then on, laboratories in the industrialised countries start producing a new vaccine. They can only begin production if they have previously obtained strains from the country – generally a developing country – where the new type of flu first emerged. Once developed, the vaccine is only just enough to protect the populations of the industrialised countries. The result is that the populations of the South are unprotected against pandemics. I am addressing the Commission in order to ask it what it intends to do to end this injustice. Is it morally defensible to have the level of health protection available to a population depend on the financial resources its country has? I would therefore like to know whether the Commission can tell us what resources it is able to mobilise to fill this gap. What, if need be, would be the Commission’s strategy, and what partnerships would it establish with the states concerned and with the institutions of the United Nations’ system, or with the private sector, in the effort to enable citizens in developing countries to have access to the vaccine? Does the WHO’s system of protecting intellectual property, which I did not mention in my written version, constitute an obstacle to the production of vaccines by developing countries? If so, would the European Union be prepared to initiate a debate within the WHO aimed at removing that obstacle? I would like to add one final question. Can the Commission outline the measures to be taken to improve the standard of health infrastructure in developing countries, an essential precondition for fairer access to vaccines?"@en1
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