The Executive Director of Oxfam, Gabriela Bucher, has reechoed the call for action on the proposed Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver to ensure greater access to vaccines in poorer countries.
South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, had urged the WTO to pass the TRIPS waiver as it will save millions of lives.
He made the call at the opening of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) 2021 Public Forum.
Bucher backed Ramophosa’s call and highlighted the impact Covid-19 is having on vulnerable communities.
‘It is time to suspend monopolies and share the vaccine blueprints, so we can bring prices down and crucially grant developing countries the ability to make more vaccines’, Bucher said.
TRIPS is a multilateral agreement that establishes minimum standards for the regulation of different forms of intellectual property rights by member states of the WTO.
In October 2020, India and South Africa introduced a document requesting a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of Covid-19.
However, in May 2021, Kenya, Eswatini, Mozambique, Pakistan, Bolivia, Venezuela, Mongolia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, the African Group, the Least Developed Countries Group, the Maldives, Fiji, Namibia, Vanuatu, Indonesia, India and South Africa issued a revised proposal.
‘This waiver shall be in force for at least three years from the date of this decision. The general council shall, thereafter, review the existence of the exceptional circumstances justifying the waiver, and if such circumstances cease to exist, the general council shall determine the date of termination of the waiver’, the revised proposal read.
Forty-two countries in Africa missed the global goal of vaccinating the most vulnerable ten percent of every country’s population against Covid-19 by the end of September, data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows.
WHO and its partners say they hope to provide Africa with about 30 percent of the Covid-19 vaccines the continent needs by February 2022.
The approval of the TRIPS waiver will greatly facilitate the achievement of the WHO new goal.
‘The reality is the current trade rules enable rich country governments and pharmaceutical corporations to work hand in hand to artificially limit vaccine supplies to developing countries’, Bucher added.
Chief Operating Officer of BionTech, Dr Sierk Poetting, recommended the building of sustainable manufacturing capabilities, particularly local production capabilities.
‘We have to enable dedicated regions to have access to the know-how and make sure that those regions have everything in place to manufacture their own vaccines’, Poetting said.
‘You have to manage supply chains, you have to manage the equipment, and you have to manage and show the local production teams how this is done. This is an endeavour that has started, and that will continue with urgency in our company’.
For the Director-General of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, she also reiterated that the rebound in growth and trade was unequal across countries and regions.
‘While nearly 60 percent of people in developed countries are fully vaccinated, in Africa, the figure is barely 4 percent’, the WTO boss said.
‘This is devastating for the lives and livelihoods of Africans. It is morally unacceptable, and as new variants spread, a threat to the health and economic recovery everywhere.
‘The trading system can and must do more to reduce vaccine inequity, and to help us tackle pressing challenges elsewhere, from our oceans to our climate’.
Source: WTO
Photo source: AMISOM Public Information
