Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Covid-19 Vaccines: Discussion
Mr. Dimitri Eynikel:
Yes. It was actually our study in which it was identified that there are 100 companies capable of producing mRNA vaccines worldwide. We ascertained this based on an examination of the profiles of the companies that work for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to produce these vaccines.
The question also refers to the roll-out of vaccines, administration and skills that exist. We have to recognise there are challenges. They are predictable. While I agree there are challenges associated with administering vaccines in certain countries and support is needed, let us not whitewash what has happened. The vaccine inequity that we see today is largely the result of what happened last year, whereby very few vaccines were available for most of the world. Eighty percent of the world's population live in low- or middle-income countries. There were very few supplies available. That is the problem we are addressing here today. It is, of course, related to intellectual property rights and trade issues. There was a large concentration of production in a few countries, including the US, European states and India. The countries that could produce had priority access whereas those that could not did not have access to these tools. They had no other source of supply. That is the problem we are discussing here today. We need diversity of production and supply so there will be multiple producers from which countries can source their vaccines now and in the future.
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