ACTIVISTS PROTEST OUTSIDE ASTRAZENECA IN CAMBRIDGE, CALLING FOR ‘PEOPLE’S VACCINE’

Tue 11 May 2021:

Activists have blocked the entrance to an AstraZeneca building in Cambridge where its AGM is taking place and hung a banner demanding that its Covid-19 jab becomes a “People’s Vaccine’.

Protesters demanding that the pharmaceutical company drop patent protections for coronavirus vaccines, Our Future Now, a youth group affiliated with the protest’s organizers, said on Tuesday.

The demonstration was organized by the UK-based Global Justice Now social justice organization in light of pharmaceutical firms behind coronavirus vaccines refusing to waiver patents following an appeal from Washington.

The drug company has argued that patent protection will be effective in curbing the pandemic, while the best strategy is to expand drug production capacities.

“Activists have blockaded @AstraZeneca during their annual shareholder meeting.

AZ must #joinCTAP to share vaccine know-how with the world We need an end to profit before lives in the Global South,” the group wrote on Twitter.

Some demonstrators, demanding “a vaccine for global health not shareholder profit,” have chained themselves to the doors of the office, while others are playing drums outside the building.

“AZ pledged to keep vaccine at cost price during the pandemic yet private doses in India are being charged almost 4x more than EU price while their masses face turmoil,” the group added.

A solidarity protest is also taking place outside the University of Oxford, which was also involved in the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Photo: A banner put up by Global Justice Now outside the Hills Road offices of AstraZeneca as it held its AGM on May 11, 2021. Picture: Jess Hurd/GlobalJusticeNow

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