This statement by the Billionaire and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, could be considered rather ruthless. But it is important for everyone to understand the explanation behind this statement.
According to an interview with Sky News, Gates was asked if it would be helpful to change intellectual property law in order to enable "the recipe for these vaccines to be shared. He promptly replied to it with a no.
He explained that there are only limited vaccine factories in the world. In addition, people are very serious about the safety of vaccines especially COVID-19 vaccines.
He continued, “And so moving something that had never been done, moving a vaccine, say, from a J&J (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.”
A news report quoted him saying, “The thing that's holding things back in this case isn't intellectual property. It's not like there's some idle vaccine factory with regulatory approval that makes magically safe vaccines. You've gotta do the trials on these things. And every manufacturing process has to be looked at in a very careful way.”
Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson have already shared vaccine formulas with some companies in developing countries. The standing example is Serum Institute of India.
"We got all the rights from the vaccine companies," he said. "They didn't hold it back, they were participating."
