We'll find a treatment for coronavirus – but drug companies will decide who gets it
Pharmaceutical giants will bury treatments in a thicket of patents, making them unaffordable to the world's poorest
How will the Covid-19 pandemic end? According to conventional wisdom, the crisis may ease in a few months, when some of the antiviral medicines on trial succeed. In a few years' time, when a vaccine becomes available, we may eradicate the virus altogether.
Yet it's unlikely that this is how the pandemic will actually play out. Although there is every indication that treatments for coronavirus may soon emerge, the mere fact of their existence is no guarantee that people will be able to access them. In fact, Covid-19 is more likely to end in the same way that every pandemic ends: treatments and vaccines will be buried in a thicket of patents - and pharmaceutical companies will ultimately make the decisions about who lives and who dies.
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