.
Last week the US government, after eight months and after at least three million people have died globally from Covid-19-related complications, including the inability to breathe, indicated that it would no longer block the proposal of the South African and Indian governments to temporarily waive certain provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic. The waiver proposal was first submitted in October 2020 to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
We, with other groups around the world, welcomed the announcement by the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai that the US government supports the “waiving of intellectual property (IP) protections for Covid-19 vaccines”. The crux of the proposal submitted by South Africa and India is that the waiver is targeted to Covid-19 medical technologies and products and covers vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics as well as items such as personal protective gear
The agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS came into effect in January 1995. It is a multilateral agreement on Intellectual Property (IP) rights such as copyright, industrial designs, patents and protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets.
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Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister of Sweden and WHO Covid-19 Special Envoy, Google Vice President
Slow WHO, poor coordination ‘to blame for pandemic’
New Delhi |
Updated on
Independent expert panel demands funds, efforts to stop Covid-19 spread A “toxic cocktail” of poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities, and an uncoordinated system allowed the Covid-19 pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis, said an Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR).
The panel, established by the World Health Organization chief last year, was also critical of the WHO’s reaction time in calling a pandemic.
“The time it took from the reporting of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown origin in mid-late December 2019 to a Public Health Emergency of International Concern being declared was too long. February 2020 was also a lost month when many more countries could have taken steps to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and forestall the global health, social, and economic catastrophe that continues its grip,” the panel said.