Upping the ante over its proposal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to allow an intellectual property waiver on coronavirus vaccines, India has asked developed countries why commercial interest of only Big Pharma sacrosanct when many sectors are reeling under the impact of coronavirus pandemic and most countries are struggling to access vaccines in an affordable and time bound manner.
“Globally, governments have intervened to suspend air transport and restrict mobility in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Sectors like civil aviation, travel and tourism, hospitality, small businesses including MSMEs continue to be severely impacted by such state interventions. These sectors are also important for the global economy, for growth, for employment. Certainly, governments are not against the interest of these sectors. We would like to know that why commercial interests of only few companies are so sacrosanct," India’s ambassador to the WTO Brajendra Navnit said at the General Council meeting of WTO on Monday.
Navnit said the pharma companies can always be compensated by incentives through pooling of public funding and global coordination, if it is to preserve incentives to innovate. “On the other hand, one percent improvement in global GDP from the baseline scenario will give $850 billion worth of global output. Therefore, an outcome on the waiver will not only help in saving valuable human lives but will also give a comforting signal to boost the consumer confidence in economy and will accelerate the recovery of world trade and global GDP," he added.
In a submission before the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Council of WTO on 2 October, India and South Africa had urged WTO members for waiver of certain rules of TRIPS agreement to ensure that intellectual property rights such as patents, industrial designs, copyright and protection of undisclosed information do not create barriers to the timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and medicines or to scaling-up of research, development, manufacturing and supply of medical products essential to combat covid-19.
The proposal has since been discussed orally many times at the TRIPS Council but a consensus for a text based negotiation has not been reached yet with developed countries including the US, European Union, Canada, Japan, UK, Australia and Switzerland opposing the proposal while Kenya, Eswatini, Mozambique, Pakistan, Bolivia, Venezuela, Mongolia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, the African Group and the Least Developed Countries Group have become co-sponsored to the proposal. The proposal is now supported by 57 WTO members.
The UN Secretary General António Guterres last month said the progress on vaccinations has been wildly uneven and unfair and more than 130 countries have not received a single dose. “If the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire in the global South, it will mutate again and again and that this can prolong the pandemic significantly, enabling the virus to come back to plague the global North," he warned.
The chair of the TRIPS Council, Ambassador Xolelwa Mlumbi-Peter of South Africa, on 23 February stressed that the single most important priority of the global community is to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, halt its rapid transmission, reduce the risks of variants and reverse the trend of consequential global distress. “We know that this goal is only achievable when everyone, everywhere can access the health technologies they need for COVID-19 detection, prevention, treatment and response. This is a goal that members of the WTO have consistently repeated in their statements. Now more than ever, international cooperation and solidarity are vital to restore global health security, now and in future," she added.
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