1. What was the joint proposal at WTO?
1. What was the joint proposal at WTO?
In October, India and South Africa jointly made a proposal to the WTO’s Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to adopt a general waiver on patents and other related barriers on diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for covid-19 for the duration of the pandemic. The proposal was aimed at improving access to these medical tools to help countries to effectively respond to the crisis. The two countries said the longer the pandemic persists, the greater the socioeconomic fallout will be, “making it imperative and urgent to collaborate internationally to rapidly contain the outbreak".
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In October, India and South Africa jointly made a proposal to the WTO’s Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to adopt a general waiver on patents and other related barriers on diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for covid-19 for the duration of the pandemic. The proposal was aimed at improving access to these medical tools to help countries to effectively respond to the crisis. The two countries said the longer the pandemic persists, the greater the socioeconomic fallout will be, “making it imperative and urgent to collaborate internationally to rapidly contain the outbreak".
2. How did other WTO members react?
The proposal has received strong support from other developing countries, such as Bolivia, Kenya, Mongolia, Pakistan and Venezuela. But developed nations, especially the EU, Switzerland, Australia, the UK and Japan have been opposing the waiver, saying it impedes innovation and that companies in the developing world do not have the capability to produce these complex medical tools. The US, too, opposed it under former president Donald Trump’s tenure, but now under President Joe Biden, it has considerably eased its position to partially support the waiver. The support will only be for waiving IPRs on vaccines.
3. Why did the US change its position on the waiver?
There was pressure from the Democrats to reverse the earlier position. More than 170 former heads of states and Nobel laureates, including former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, former French president François Hollande and Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, urged Biden to support the waiver for covid-19 vaccines.
4. How significant is the US support?
The US is only supporting IP waiver on vaccines. Patent waiver on drugs is equally, if not more, important than vaccines because it is important that treatment options remain accessible and not expensive and scarce as in the case of remdesivir and tocilizumab. Biswajit Dhar, professor and head of Centre for WTO Studies at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, said it seems the US is trying to keep some leverage by not supporting patent waiver for drugs, especially as more effective treatments are being developed.
5. Will a waiver improve access to vaccines?
The biggest hurdle to access will be transfer of technology because if innovator firms don’t do so, it would take at least a year to under-stand how to make it, especially for mRNA vaccines, an official at a vaccine maker said, on condition of anonymity. Besides, if developed countries add a clause that says they will put “best endeavour" into waiving patents, innovator firms can get away with not cooperating. If technology is transferred and conditions are suitable, vaccine makers could be ready to produce in three to six months.
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