Uproar in France as Sanofi says US to get vaccine first

The French government cried foul yesterday after its homegrown pharmaceutical giant Sanofi said it would reserve first shipments of any COVID-19 vaccine for the United States, slamming the move as "unacceptable" in a crisis that has killed nearly 300,000 people worldwide.

Sanofi's chief executive Paul Hudson sparked the controversy after announcing that US patients would get first choice because their government was helping to fund the vaccine search.

His comments drew outrage from officials and health experts, who noted that the Paris-based multinational has benefited from tens of millions of euros in research credits from the French state in recent years.

"For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons," France's deputy finance minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told Sud Radio Thursday.

Around 140 former and current world leaders, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and health experts yesterday called on officials to ensure that any vaccines founds be made available "for all people, in all countries, free of charge."

"Now is not the time to allow the interests of the wealthiest corporations and governments to be placed before the universal need to save lives," the signatories said ahead of the World Health Organization's annual meeting next week.

"Access to vaccines and treatments as global public goods are in the interests of all humanity."