Covid-19: Drug companies charged South Africa high prices for vaccines, contracts reveal

South Africa’s government, desperate to secure covid vaccines when wealthy nations had reserved most of the early supply, was “held to ransom” by three pharmaceutical companies and by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, according to South African campaigners who successfully sued the government to force publication of the vaccine contracts.Gavi, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica, and the Serum Institute of India imposed “overwhelmingly one sided” conditions of secrecy, restrictions on distribution to other nations, and prices that in some cases exceeded those charged to much richer countries, said the Health Justice Initiative (HJI) in a report analysing the contracts.1The documents provide a rare glimpse into a process that in most countries remains hidden behind secrecy clauses demanded by the manufacturers. “We found that in all four contracts or agreements, the pernicious nature of pharmaceutical bullying and Gavi’s heavy handedness is evident,” the report said.“In our scramble for desperately needed…
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