Morales slams 'commercializing health' in virus combat

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - Bolivia's former President Evo Morales on Monday criticized “commercializing health” amid efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, implying the U.S. president’s reported move to buy a German firm for a possible vaccine.

"The coronavirus has shown that commercializing health, as proposed by capitalism, is inhuman and immoral," Morales commented on Twitter, by posting an image featuring a Spanish daily report on U.S. President Donald Trump’s fund offer to a German firm for the patent of a coronavirus vaccine.

"Health cannot be a business, but must be a human right," Morales said. "It is time for the countries of the world to return to the path of solidarity. Let's protect life first."

A report of Spanish daily ABC dated Sunday claimed that Trump offered fund to CureVac, a German pharmaceutical company which has been working on a possible vaccine for coronavirus, in exchange for the “exclusive rights” of possible vaccine.

The Spanish daily in its report cited the German weekly Welt am Sonntag which reported earlier that Trump offered $1 billion to CureVac but demanded that the company should develop the coronavirus vaccine “only for the United States”.

Trump's alleged attempts to buy CureVac slammed Monday by German politicians.

The death toll from novel coronavirus in the U.S. has climbed to 69, with total confirmed cases is around 3,800, according to Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Meanwhile, in Bolivia, there are 10 confirmed cases without any fatality so far.

The Trump administration signed an $8.3 billion emergency funding bill early March to "accelerate the development of a vaccine and assist with response efforts." According to a government official cited by the Associated Press, coronavirus vaccine's clinical trial starts Monday.

The worldwide death toll now numbers around 6,500, with some 165,000 confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which declared the outbreak a pandemic.