France to join South Africa’s bid to increase support for Trips waivers at G7 meeting
1 Jun 2021
28 May 2021, South Africa, Pretoria: Emmanuel Macron (l), President of France, and Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, attend the launch meeting of the Initiative for the Future of Vaccines in Africa at the University of Pretoria. Photo: Christoph Soeder/dpa (Photo by Christoph Soeder/picture alliance via Getty Images)
France has made a commitment to support President Cyril Ramaphosa’s drive to persuade leaders at both the upcoming G7 and G20 meetings to agree to a waiver on the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) agreement for Covid-19-related pharmaceutical interventions.
Even if WTO waives IP on vaccines, India will face challenge translating this into mass production
The barriers are more practical than legal. A Mumbai vaccination centre runs out of stocks. | Punit Paranjpe/AFP
jointly submitted by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organisation, the European Union remains the last major power opposing this proposal.
While we await the results of possibly lengthy text-based negotiations, it is necessary for the government of India to come out with a white paper explaining how exactly it intends to operationalise a possible IP waiver for vaccines, if and when such a waiver comes into effect.
KUALA LUMPUR: The only hope for the world to end the Covid-19 pandemic is to ensure as many people are vaccinated as rapidly as possible, hence Malays.
India, South Africa and 60 other nations have revised the proposal for temporarily waiving Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection on the anti-Covid-19 vaccines and drugs and re-submitted it before the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to address the concerns of the opponents. The governments co-sponsoring the proposal for the patent waiver at the WTO now suggested