It is hard to fight to limit patents for anti-COVID vaccines

Two texts are discussed inWTO. One must facilitate the circulation of substances necessary for the fight against pandemics, one must allow the temporary removal of patents for anti-COVID vaccines.

Members are really starting to get closer to a deal in the first text, while the second is more problematicsaid a spokesman forWTODan Pruzin, in the evening.

Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has made responding to the pandemic a priority since taking office as head ofWTO in March 2021.

The NGO came to remind diplomats of the importance of the subject by protesting right within the organization, banding a banner saying: End the apartheid vaccine!

The temporary removal of patents is divided, the pharmaceutical industry sees it as a weakening of intellectual property, whereas for NGO the text doesn’t go very well.

Médecins sans frontières regrets that it is limited in time and does not deal with other intellectual property barriers, such as industry secrets.

Switzerland and the United Kingdom, where the pharmaceutical industry weighs heavily on the economy, have so far shown themselves reluctant to remove intellectual property rights.

The claim that a broad waiver of intellectual property would solve the problem does not correspond to reality. Intellectual property is not part of the problem, but part of the solutionSwiss Ambassador Markus Schlagenhof, delegate for trade agreements, told reporters.

Rich countries should do their research!

British Minister for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan stressed on Twitter that the challenge is achieve a satisfactory solution for companies and governments.

L ‘WTO operating by consensus, the 164 member countries must agree to terminate.

Mr. Pruzin underlined that the delegations have not yet entered the heart of the negotiations.

More than two years after COVID-19 appeared, the situation is bitter. The vaccination rate remains inadequate in poor countries, particularly in Africa.

If vaccines were now produced in sufficient quantities, they would be sorely lacking in pandemic prevalence in poor countries, while populations in developed countries are already receiving their booster dose.

In his speech, India’s Minister of Trade Piyush Goyal, whose country launched with South Africa the idea of ​​lifting intellectual property rights for all anti-COVID medical device, that I amWTO is nothing able to react quickly.Rich countries should do their research!he launched.

But India suspended vaccine exports for months to meet the needs of its people, when it was the main supplier for the international sharing system Covax.

… We choose death

For the Director General of UNAIDS, Winnie Byanyima, during the pandemic, technology sharing was a matter of life and death and we chose death.

The draft intellectual property agreement provides that eligible developing countries can produce vaccines without the consent of the right holder by any instrument available at law this country.

But the negotiators left out some brackets indicating unresolved passages. Thus, the draft agreement suggests that developing countries with the capacity to export vaccines will encouraged do not use the waiver of patents.

It is also expected that developing countries whose share in global exports of COVID-19 vaccine doses in 2021 will be more than 10% will not be able to use the removal of patents, de facto excluding China.

Beijing has promised not to use the facilities allowed in developing countries by this draft agreement, but according to some diplomats the United States wants to write this promise.

The text provides the possibility to extend the agreement on examinations and treatment six months after its ratification, but no agreement has yet been reached.