COVID-19 Vaccine Accessibility

The patent waiver procedure at the World Trade Organization needs to be fast-tracked. The global community must not be constrained by the interests of private industry and saving lives is what matters.

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) newly appointed director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on 9 March 2021 asked COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers for assistance to increase the production in developing countries. This was to tackle the vaccine supply shortage in many lower-income nations. She is a former chair of the Vaccine Alliance GAVI (formerly Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation), that has immunised 760 million children worldwide since its inception in 2000. And she knows very well how important the COVID-19 vaccine is for saving lives in the low-income countries.

But there is a big contradiction between what the director general said, and what is happening inside the WTO on this issue. Developing countries are strongly pleading for a vote in the WTO General Council on a proposal to waiver intellectual property rights (IPR) for vaccine production and use. But the developed countries have locked the issue in Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) council, which is just a step before it reaches the general council.