- Target:
- International Court of Justice, United Nations Secretary General, African Union Chairperson
- Region:
- GLOBAL
Ebola has killed over 4700 citizens in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea as one one Liberian citizen in the United States. The present Ebola outbreak has been cited by the WHO as the worse in modern times. About 9,900 people are said be infected and unless contained will infect more people.
So far the USA, Mali and Spain have reported cases. A number of companies are producing vaccine but the effectiveness of these vaccine will have be tested by trials made on current infected people in Africa. There is very little information on the long term side effects of the vaccines even if clinical trials succeed and the servals rates diminished. To research and produce the vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline PLC awarded USD 1 million. Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation of Canada has received USD 140 million from the US Department of Defense to work with US Army Medical research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
UK's Welcome Trust has awarded USD 5.15 million grant to Oxford University on the Ebola vaccine research. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awareded USD 50 million. Other institutions involved in the vaccine research are Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, Chimeria Inc, Public Health Agency of Canada, New Link Genetics Corp, Okairos Unit of Glaxo and the Caliber Biotherapeutics based in Taxes. In the absence of the infected people in West Africa, this research will not have a market or outlet other than the primates in the Congo Forest.
Two issues are involved here. First the production of the vaccine should be transparent and approached used be publicly reported. The second is that since the long and short term effects of these vaccines are unknown, the patients who received the vaccine should be indemnified. So far seven people have received an Ebola vaccine generated from GMO Tobacco leaves, two have since died.
We, the undersigned, call on the International Court of Justice to deliberate on the dissemination and use of an untested Ebola vaccine on Africans and to resolve as follows:
(1) compel the corporate suppliers and producers of the Ebola vaccine and the governments of any receipient country with Ebola victims to provide short and long terms legal safeguards its Ebola citizens;
(2) indemnify all Ebola patients in their respective countries;
(3) establish an Ebola Indemnity Fund from which all Ebola patients as well as the relatives of those that die will be sustained;
(4) Investigate all deaths attributed to Ebola and issue death certificate accordingly and ensure that a permanent memorial and plaque is built in remembrance of the Ebola victims in West Africa and elsewhere and that any citizen of any country who is unreasonable mistreated or harassed or his or her human rights violated at any airport be compensated for an amount not less than USD 100,000.
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The Establish an Ebola Indemnity Fund petition to International Court of Justice, United Nations Secretary General, African Union Chairperson was written by Kojo B. Acquaisie and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.