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Nearly 150 international civil society organisations have urged trade ministers to reject the current draft text on patent waiver at the WTO and negotiate an “effective and meaningful" intellectual property rights waiver on all covid-19 medical products.
It said a deal based on the current draft text will be largely ineffective given that it excludes covid-19 medicines and diagnostics and is only limited to vaccines.
“The draft Ministerial Decision on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement is inadequate and contradictory to the WTO’s foundational principles… We therefore call on you, as Trade Ministers, to not accept this current text and demand a real and effective TRIPS Waiver, as originally proposed," said the letter.
People continue to die from covid-19 without access to life-saving treatments, said the CSOs, including Amnesty International. Oxfam, ActionAid Australia, ACT Alliance EU and People’s Vaccine Alliance.
This comes a day after World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday urged member countries to arrive at a consensus on intellectual property rights waiver on medicines and diagnostics.