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RED BOX | SHAMI CHAKRABARTI

British leaders must put lives before profits in India’s coronavirus crisis

The Times

What is happening in India is a humanitarian crisis. Hospitals are full and overflowing. Crematoriums and graveyards have been overcome with bodies. Oxygen and ventilator supplies have long depleted and people are turning to the black market to buy ineffective treatments.

It’s a crisis for which India’s government has much to answer, but the UK government must also reflect on its own complicity. Working with a small number of mostly wealthy nations, they have vehemently defended intellectual property rights on vaccines, creating a global scarcity of doses while hoarding the limited supplies available.

We are witnessing vaccine apartheid, with widespread vaccination in the wealthiest countries while the rest are left to suffer. Under international human rights law, the prime minister must do all he can