Washington: Bill Gates’ interview with Sky News has led to raised eyebrows. The Microsoft founder and philanthropist said patents in vaccine technology shouldn’t be shared with Indian manufacturers.
Asked if the formula for COVID vaccines should be shared with developing nations, Gates said, “Well, there’s only so many vaccine factories in the world and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And moving something that had never been done — moving vaccine, say, a from a (Johnson & Johnson) factory into a factory in India — it’s novel — it’s only because of our grants and expertise that can happen at all.”
He said reason for holding things back “is not intellectual property. It’s not like there’s some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines. You know, you’ve got to do the trail on these things. Every manufacturing process needs to be looked at in a very careful way.”
India faces one of the worst situations amid the global pandemic with daily COVID cases and number of deaths at their highest, and growing at an alarming rate with oxygen and vaccine shortages all over the country.
Also Read: Modi Govt’s Pandemic ‘Failure’: India Looks To ‘Counter’ World Media Narrative
