As the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic ravages India, the United States has announced that it will support a proposal by India and South Africa at World Trade Organisation (WTO) to temporarily waiver intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines.
The support of the US to the India-South Africa led initiative comes at a crucial time as more vaccines are needed to boost the global supply to counter the Covid-19, as it will now allow manufacturers around the world to produce the vaccine. However, the other developed nations still would have to support this initiative.
United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai on Wednesday (5 May) announced that the Biden-Harris Administration support the waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines.
These extraordinary times and circumstances of call for extraordinary measures.
— Ambassador Katherine Tai (@AmbassadorTai) May 5, 2021
The US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic and we’ll actively participate in @WTO negotiations to make that happen. pic.twitter.com/96ERlboZS8
“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” Tai said in the statement.
“We will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the WTO needed to make that happen. Those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved,” she said.
“The Administration’s aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible. As our vaccine supply for the American people is secured, the Administration will continue to ramp up its efforts – working with the private sector and all possible partners – to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution. It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines,” Tai added.
At a time of global crisis, it was important for India and South Africa to ask the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to push for the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver for Covid vaccines.
Jonas Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He could have made billions of dollars, however, he chose to give away the patent rights and when asked who owns the patent rights to the polio vaccine, he said, “Who owns this patent?” Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?
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