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Washington, April 15
The US remained non-committal on the move by India and South Africa to get Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver for Covid vaccine before the WTO so that the doses are accessible and affordable to low- and middle-income countries.
The move by India, South Africa and several other countries has been supported by more than 60 top American lawmakers, most of whom are progressives.
US Trade Representatives Katherine Tai, in her address to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) virtual conference on Covid vaccine equity on Wednesday, however, did not weigh in on the request made by India and South Africa.
Americans want to free the vaccine patents. Will the Biden administration listen?
NORBERTO DUARTE/AFP/Getty Images
A nurse prepares a dose of India s COVAXIN vaccine against Covid-19 at the public hospital in Villa Elisa, Paraguay.
There’s one big thing the Biden administration could do to beat back the global pandemic: urge the World Trade Organization to waive patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines. To date, it hasn’t done that, despite calls from India, South Africa, and 100 other mainly low- and middle-income countries represented in the WTO. Instead, protections for patent-holders in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement, or TRIPS, prevent such countries from manufacturing the vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer, among others, and which are now being administered to the populations of wealthier nations.
And still keep patent benefits for drugmakers.
Apr 15th, 2021
Hospital staff in Lagos, Nigeria, administer the AstraZeneca vaccine.
AP Photo/Sunday Alamba
The world has a COVID-19 vaccine access problem: Almost half of all doses administered so far have been in Europe and North America, while many poorer countries have vaccinated less than than 1% of their populations.
With new coronavirus variants raising the health risk, South Africa and India have proposed that the World Trade Organization temporarily waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines to help ramp up production.
The U.S., Britain and the European Union rejected the idea, arguing that intellectual property rights – which give vaccine creators the power to prevent other companies from reproducing their products – are necessary to ensure innovation and waiving them would not result in increased production. They are now under pressure to change their minds.
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday called for scaling up global production of vaccines and medical products to battle the pandemic. This will require removal of barriers to the production of Covid-19 medical products, including where necessary intellectual property protection, Goyal said at an event organised by the World Trade Organization on “Covid-19 and vaccine equity: What can the WTO contribute?” The minister said an inequitable vaccination programme could prolong the pandemic for many years through cycles of mutation and might cost the global economy trillions of dollars as lost output and fiscal and monetary stimulus. Last year, India and South Africa, along with 57 other WTO members, proposed a temporary waiver from certain provisions of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement relevant to the prevention, treatment and containment of Covid-19. A waiver on certain provisions of the multilateral agreement is expe