Vaccine companies shareholders' profits would pay to vaccinate Africa, say campaigners

Ahead of shareholder meetings for pharma corporations, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance movement have pointed out that Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) have paid out $26 billion in dividends and stock buybacks to their shareholders in the past 12 months.

The campaigners say that this would be enough to pay to vaccinate at least 1.3 billion people, the equivalent of the population of Africa.

"We need a people’s vaccine, not a profit vaccine"They are spreading their message to pressure companies to openly license their intellectual property and share the technology and know-how with qualified vaccine producers across the world, in the belief that this will allow the entire globe to be affordably and swiftly vaccinated.