VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
ICOR Resolution 17 December 2020: Vaccines belong to humanity – not to the pharmaceutical corporations!
It is a great success that due to the research of many people, only one year after the first Covid-19 infections, several vaccines are about to be approved or are currently being administered.
This is a success, although strict monitoring and scientific evaluation of their efficacy and tolerability must continue.
The success, the breadth of vaccinations, the quality and safety could be even greater if such vaccine research would not also be taking place under the conditions of rivalry of pharmaceutical companies in the interest of imperialist competition. For example, Russia is using its Sputnik V vaccine in the Latin American market to gain advantages over its capitalist rivals from the United States, Germany, France, and Japan. The Chinese company Sinovac has signed testing and manufacturing contracts for its vaccine with numerous countries. With the production of mRNA vaccines, a new type of vaccine has also been achieved. Also due to its simple structure, many millions of vaccine doses can be produced in a few weeks.
The vaccine and the necessary medical treatment must be accessible to all countries and people, especially the poor. But as the approval of the vaccines of the big pharmaceutical corporations Pfizer/Biontech, Moderna and AstraZeneca approaches, it becomes clear that the imperialists are aiming to secure the majority for themselves. For example, according to Oxfam, only a few countries, making up 13 percent of the world's population, have already secured more than half of all vaccine doses. For Peru, one of the countries with the highest death rate per capita in the pandemic, vaccine shipments have been announced only by August next year.
Covax-Facility (Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access), established in 2020 by the World Health Organization, is ostensibly to ensure a fair distribution of the vaccine. But there are few financial commitments to its self-imposed goals. And the distribution envisaged by Covax is also anything but fair: countries that can pay for their own vaccine doses are to be supplied with priority over countries that are dependent on aid funds. We reject this inhuman imperialist health policy in the strongest possible terms!
Even in the imperialist countries we criticize the vaccination policy. It relies unilaterally on large testing centers instead of focusing on general practitioner care close to home. And here, too, the Covid-19 pandemic is a disease of the poor.
We demand: The order of vaccinations must be based on strictly medical and infectiological criteria – all over the world, regardless of the financial possibilities of countries and individuals! In particular, the necessary logistics must be taken into account: Countries with limited possibilities for the necessary cooling of the vaccines must be provided especially with vaccines from AstraZeneca and Moderna and similar products, the cooling of which is less complicated. At this stage, vaccinations should be voluntary and not introduce compulsory vaccination through the back door via certain special rights for vaccinated people.
Vaccinations are an achievement of the development of humankind to which all people are entitled! Instead, under capitalism/imperialism, profit is made from vaccines that can decide over life and death!
Away with the patent right on vaccines!
Forward to socialism - for a society, in which the achievements of humankind also benefit all!
Signatories (as of 17 December 2020, further signatories possible):
1.PCPCI Parti Communiste Proletarien de Côte d'Ivoire (Proletarian Communist Party of Ivory Coast)
2.UPC-Manidem Union des Populations du Cameroun - Manifeste National pour l’Instauration de la Démocratie (Union of Populations of Cameroon - National Manifesto for the Establishment of Democracy)
3.MMLPL Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Line
4.CPSA (ML) Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)
5.PCT Parti Comuniste du Togo (Communist Party of Togo)
6.PPDS Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia
7.MLOA Marxist-Leninist Organization of Afghanistan
8.CPB Communist Party of Bangladesh
9.CPI (ML) Red Star Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Star
10.NCP (Mashal) Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)
11.PPRF Patriotic Peoples Republican Front of Nepal
12.NDMLP New-Democratic Marxist-Leninist Party, Sri Lanka
13.CPA/ML Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
14.БКП Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)
15.БРП(к) Българска Работническа Партия (комунисти) (Bulgarian Workers Party (Communist))
16.PR-ByH Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)
17.MLPD Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)
18.UCLyon Unité Communiste Lyon (Communist United Lyon), France
19.UPML Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France
20.KOL Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)
It is a great success that due to the research of many people, only one year after the first Covid-19 infections, several vaccines are about to be approved or are currently being administered.