First world nations have rejected a World Trade Organisation (WTO) proposal to waive the intellectual property rights needed for the manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines. The waiver would have made the vaccine access cheaper for developing nations.
This was disclosed in a report by Reuters on Friday, after an exclusive with WTO insiders. The European Union and the United States were reported to have opposed the waiver before the WTO’s General Council meeting in December.
Reuters disclosed that member nations support the waiver because it reduces barriers on access to affordable vaccines, citing the AIDS epidemic where waivers were also dropped.
“If rich countries prefer profits to life, they will kill it by tying it down in technicalities,” a delegate told Reuters.
Another WTO insider said that refusal to accede to a waiver would “also undermine the collaborative efforts to fight the pandemic that are already underway.”
The support for the waiver was initially raised by India and South Africa, with China joining the bid for a waiver, despite having vaccines under development.
What you should know
The race for a vaccine is heating up as 2 companies, Pfizer and Moderna Inc, recently released promising data on their vaccines.
Nairametrics reported last week that Pfizer Inc had announced that its experimental vaccine, which it jointly developed with BioNTech, was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on initial data from a large study, in the ongoing phase 3 trials.
