THE government is threatening to render “toothless” a proposed pandemic international treaty and is placing pharmaceutical profits over lives, health campaigners have warned.

British, EU and US officials have blocked proposals by countries in the global South including measures to ensure equitable global access to medicines in future pandemics, and for limits on pharmaceutical monopolies.

The pandemic talks, at the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, could lead to a treaty which will strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Negotiations were initiated by WHO member states in 2021.

Intended to prevent a repeat of the deep global inequalities faced by global South regions during the Covid pandemic, the proposed treaty aims to improve international co-ordination on data sharing, research, and production and distribution of vaccines and medical care.

Only 32.7 per cent of people in low-income countries have received at least one Covid vaccine, less than half the global figure of 70.6 per cent.

Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said: “Once again, the British government is doing the bidding of Big Pharma by attempting to render the pandemic treaty toothless, placing pharmaceutical profits over lives once more. 

“If we are truly to learn the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic, we must ensure we never again allow big pharmaceutical corporations to monopolise life-saving medicines and knowledge [amid] a global health crisis. 

“Public investment, public-sector workers and community responsibility ended the Covid pandemic.

“Meanwhile, pharmaceutical greed caused the unnecessary loss of tens of thousands of lives because big corporations were allowed to monopolise and hoard medical knowledge, which should have been shared freely with the world.”

He said the British government “seems content to repeat these mistakes and double down on this unconscionable and dangerous injustice.”