Question

As a shareholder of a pharmaceutical firm that announced a new investment to develop an Ebola vaccine and, that as a result, your dividend (as a shareholder) would be reduced substantially. Would you support or not support, as a shareholder, the firm's decision to spend your dividend monies to combat Ebola? Why?

Answer 1

answer....
The virus of Ebola was first discovered in 1976 in Sudan and Zaire still there is no significant vaccine which can cure Ebola. In the absence of any effective vaccine , the treatment of Ebola is done through indirect measures. From 1976 to till now, there have been almost 25 outbreaks of Ebola and mostly African countries are worst affected by this virus.
One of the main reasons for having no vaccine for Ebola is that not enough investment is made in the R&D of Ebola treatment as this virus is mainly related to African countries which do not have enough purchasing power and thus it is not a fruitful market for pharmaceutical firms.
As in the case, it is proposed that one of the pharmaceutical firm decides in favor of investment in R&D of Ebola cure, so as an investor I would definitely praise this initiative despite having some losses on the investment made in the form of shares of that firm.
The main reason behind supporting this decision s that it is the ethical duty of every individual to provide the relief to other individuals from the pain and discomfort which is caused by Ebola virus. There are numerous deaths and many are struggling with Ebola and despite that there is no significant initiatives from the pharmaceutical firms only because of business greed.
Being the part of the society and the world, only churning profit should not be the objective of the business organisation. These firms have their greater responsibilities towards mankind and thus the attempts should be made to find out the cure and medicine of this deadly virus.
As the continent of Africa is worst affected by this virus and due to the poor economic conditions, the citizens of these countries are not able to take care of themselves and their relatives who are suffering from this illness. As these countries are economically deprive and do not have enough financial resource to finance these costly investment in R&D , thus it becomes more of a ethical responsibility of all the pharmaceutical firms to find the cure of Ebola virus.