COVID-19

Any COVID-19 vaccine must not be commodified: Sayed-Khaiyum

August 10, 2020 12:45 pm

The government is working closely with other international agencies to ensure if a COVID-19 vaccine is available, it should not be commodified.

The government is working closely with other international agencies to ensure if a COVID-19 vaccine is available, it should not be commodified.

Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says they’re in talks with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund regarding the issue, saying the availability of any vaccine must be treated as a public good.

Sayed-Khaiyum says this is to ensure that small and developing countries have equal access to any COVID-19 vaccine.

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“If it suddenly becomes commodified than essentially we’ll be at the bottom of the chain in terms of accessing the vaccine because everybody is going to rush for it. Of course you have the pricing issue surrounding that. We are talking to organizations like the World Bank and the IMF. Fiji is currently the chair of the small states forum in the World Bank Group, so we are taking advantage of that.”

Many leading researchers in the world are working on producing a COVID-19 vaccine with some countries already conducting tests.