MERS: Who owns medical research?

As the virus threatens to go global, we look at the dispute over patents that is slowing down the search for a vaccine. The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, is a virus that has already killed more than three dozen people, and threatens to become a global concern. The need for a vaccine against the virus is becoming increasingly vital, but a dispute over patents appears to be slowing everything down. Scientists at the Erasmus medical centre in Rotterdam say they only have the rights to the medicines and vaccines that treat the illness, not the virus itself. It is claimed that anybody now wanting to study the virus will have to pay a Dutch company to do so. But should anyone have sole ownership of medical research? MERS, like SARS, is part of the coronavirus family. First reported in Saudi Arabia last year, it infects the lungs, causing pneumonia and acute respiratory problems....