India and South Africa have submitted a proposal for waiver from certain provisions of the Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement for the prevention, treatment and containment of COVID-19, to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) TRIPS Council on 2nd October 2020.
The objective of the proposal is to ensure that the intellectual property rights do not create a hurdle in rapid scale up of manufacturing capacities throughout the globe to meet the objective of equitable, timely and affordable access for all to vaccines, therapeutics and other goods required to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the submission to the TRIPS Council in October 2020, the waiver proposal has now been co-sponsored by fifty seven other WTO members, with many members supporting from the floor. The waiver proposal has also received support from several civil society groups and the World Health Organisation.
(Published from PIB)
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