With the Ebola virus confined to impoverished states in
Africa until 2014, drug companies had little financial incentive to develop a
vaccine. “A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that
cannot pay,” Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health
Organization, said in late 2014.[1]
At the time, at least 13,567 people were known to have contracted the virus in
the outbreak, with nearly 5,000 people dead. It cannot be said that the
profit-motive in a market economy is efficient in this case.
The full essay is at “Ebola
Vaccine.”
1. Rick
Gladstone, “Ebola
Cure Delayed by Drug Industry’s Drive for Profit, W.H.O. Leader Says,” The New York Times, November 3, 2014.
