STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD SECRETARY GENERAL
24 June 2021
GOOD welcomes collaborating with other political parties around common values and issues of public interest, but has declined an invitation to join an EFF protest against SAHPRA on the grounds that it doesn’t make sense.
The national health products regulatory authority is responsible for authorising the use of vaccines once they are satisfied that the vaccine is effective and safe. It relies on vaccine developers to apply for approvals, and to provide evidence from clinical trials.
There is no evidence that SAHPRA is unreasonably withholding approval for any vaccine. It is in nobody’s interest that its regulatory processes are subverted.
South Africa’s vaccination programme has got off to a slow start, with media quick to blame the State’s inefficiencies. This doesn’t paint the whole picture.
State inefficiencies aside, the truth is that there are severe supply constraints on vaccines as a direct result of world leaders’ wariness of the economic consequences of waiving patents governing the production of vaccines.
SAHPRA is in no position to increase the supply of vaccines. Those with this power are leaders of powerful northern nations who are withholding or delaying support for the TRIPS waiver proposed by South Africa and India eight months ago.
Vaccine supply failure is a failure of global leadership.
Instead of marching on SAHPRA it makes more sense to GOOD to focus our attention on increasing the supply of vaccines so that no country is left behind. Vaccines should be readily, easily and abundantly available for equitable supply across the world.
Access to adequate health care, including a vaccine to protect us from Covid is a human right that no country, or pharmaceutical company, should be in a position to deny.
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