Indications are that Big Pharma ripped off South Africa and was interested in profiteering from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Health Justice Initiative (HJI) which is analysing the Covid vaccine procurement contracts reveals that South Africa overpaid.

For the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Pretoria paid 33% more than the African Union while the Serum Institute of India charged 2.5 times more for a generic version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine compared to the United Kingdom. Johnson & Johnson also charged 15% more when compared to the European Union.

Government was also effectively hung out to dry as pharmaceuticals insisted on indemnity clauses, a vaccine injury compensation fund and sweeping waivers.

The HJI’s founder and director Fatima Hassan says South Africa was bullied into unfair and undemocratic terms that were totally one-sided. She adds put simply, pharmaceutical companies held the country to ransom. Hassan questioned whether Big Pharma did the same to other countries.

Governments in the Global South have been called to take the necessary steps to prevent this type of bullying from being repeated in a next pandemic.