Pharma greed took my 'Bibi' away from me

This blog is written by Just Treatment supporter Rasha Sikafi.

My name is Dr Rasha Mezher-Sikafi and I am a GP with two children living in Greater London. I have family in Iraq but have lived in the UK all my life, and couldn’t imagine being anything other than a doctor. When lockdown began in 2020, like so many families we hunkered down and I kept going  to work through the pandemic. 

I had Covid in the first wave, although I didn’t realise it at the time. It got picked up on antibody tests that our GP surgery (my workplace) did later on that year. I had lost my sense of smell for eight months and went through ongoing fatigue for three months. 

My only surviving grandmother has always been based in Iraq, living an independent and full life in the city of Baghdad. However, we lost my beloved ‘Bibi’ (paternal grandmother) in 2021, to Covid. As a family we still have not come to terms with our losses. Especially as she had not received a vaccine, when so many of her age here in the UK had received two at that time.  

Bibi was a force to be reckoned with. She was 85 years old, fiercely independent and lived in her own house in the city. She had diabetes, high blood pressure and was a breast cancer survivor but managed all her conditions with medication.

“Her death could have been prevented. If vaccines were made available to her, she would have been alive today and my children would have been able to hug her.”

Lockdown was tricky for her, as staying at home without any social interaction was difficult. She had wonderful neighbours who looked in on her but she sadly contracted COVID-19 and was found by her grandson unconscious in a coma, from lack of oxygen.

At the time of Bibi’s death, I had had two doses of the vaccine already with the booster available on the horizon - but Bibi had not even had her first dose. The lack of supply of Covid vaccines to the country meant that Bibi would not be able to hug her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

“Her death represents lost opportunities. ”

We’re living in a global vaccine apartheid. Pharmaceutical companies use their monopolies to control who gets access to Covid vaccines and treatments - and while in the UK we’ve had ample supply, Bibi lived in a country where access was so low that she died without even having had her first dose. Yet our government continues to back big pharma’s monopolies - time and again choosing private profit over the lives of people like Bibi.

COVID-19 knows no borders and our efforts to overcome this pandemic and avoid future variants, urgently needs to reflect that. We cannot afford to be nationalistic or possessive about the distribution of vaccines. We will ultimately pay the price with our health.