More than 60 developing countries called for three-year suspension of coronavirus vaccine patents

More than 60 developing countries, led by India and South Africa, have submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) a revised version of their proposal to suspend patents on vaccines and other products against the disease COVID-19., in which they specified that such an interruption should last at least 3 years.

The proposal of 62 countries (including two Latin Americans, Venezuela and Bolivia) slightly modifies the one presented on October 2, 2020, due to the fact that no consensus has been reached for more than six months of debates, and underlines that the suspension “should be in effect for at least three years from the decision taken”.

After this time, the WTO General Council should consider whether the exceptional circumstances justifying the suspension of intellectual property rights are maintained, and if not, this measure would end, the countries defending the proposal said in an official note to the agency.

On the other hand, the new text specifies more the products whose patents must be suspended, and which would include “Diagnostics, therapies, vaccines, medical devices, personal protective equipment, its materials and components, as well as methods of manufacture” in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Developing countries submitting the proposal recalled that This measure is increasingly urgent in an attempt to increase the production of tools against the coronavirus, given the emergence of new variants that could potentially be resistant to therapies and vaccines.

Many developed countries and pharmaceutical companies still oppose this proposal, arguing that a patent suspension will not increase vaccine manufacturing in the short term, as the infrastructure to produce them in developing regions does not yet exist.

They also make sure that Intellectual property rights defended by patents are essential to boost research, and that without them, it would not have been possible to develop in a record time of barely a year more than a dozen vaccines against the COVID-19 disease.

The new proposal was presented a few days before the start of the annual meeting of the World Health Organization, during which increasing vaccine production will be a central theme.

It also coincides with a G20 Health Summit in which the leaders of several countries insisted on the need for a more equitable distribution of the vaccines against the coronaviruses.

The fact that US government to announce openness to negotiating patent suspension earlier this month, at a time when this country is making rapid progress in immunizing its adult population, he hoped that talks could be started on the issue at the WTO.

“It’s a Global health crisis and extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measuress “, were the words just over two weeks ago from US Trade Representative Katherine Tai in the same WTO, setting the position of the country and its president Joe Biden for pharmaceutical companies to issue patents for their coronavirus vaccines.

The objective is provide as many safe and effective vaccines as possible to as many people as possible as quickly as possibleTai insisted, in a context of generalized progress of the pandemic, in particular in India and in South America.

(With information from EFE)

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