United States backs patent release for coronavirus vaccines – Telam

The United States rocked the council World Trade Organization (WTO) supports patent publication for coronavirus vaccines, a position that so far both this country and the European powers and several of its closest allies have vetoed despite the growing shortage of doses across almost the entire planet and the worsening pandemic.

“It is a global health crisis and the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measuresUS Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement quoted by Sputnik news agency.

He added that “the government strongly believes in intellectual property protections, but in the interest of ending this pandemic, it supports the exemption of such protections for covid-19 vaccines.”

“We are in favor of the exemption at the WTO, we are in favor of what the promoters of the exemption are trying to achieve, which is better access, more production capacity and more doses administered.”he also explained in an interview published by the Bloomberg news site.

With these statements, the United States has changed its stance on one of the most sensitive issues at this time of the pandemic, when a few countries – usually producers – are concentrating the vast majority of global doses and the rest are suffering from delays. important delivery • production and logistical issues to get enough vaccine to meet your immunization goals.

Global complaint

Organizations like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) They have campaigned for months to demand this exception, given the danger and the higher levels of mortality shown by the latest waves of the pandemic in Latin America as well as Asia and Europe.

However, according to data from World Health Organization (WHO), more than 87% of vaccine doses administered worldwide, until early April, were injected in the wealthiest countries, while low-income countries received only 0.2% of inoculants produced until early April. ‘now against the coronavirus.

Precisely, many of these rich countries which concentrate the most doses in the world are those which refused to support a suspension of the patents on the vaccines against the coronaviruses during the duration of the pandemic.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, hailed what he saw as a “historic decision” for the United States.

“I congratulate the United States on this historic decision,” tweeted Tedros, who called for moving forward “all together quickly, in solidarity, to harness the ingenuity and commitment of the scientists who produced the vaccines. Covid-19, which saved lives. “

The head of the WHO has been campaigning for months for this measure, which India and South Africa have proposed to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Instead, the US decision was deemed “disappointing” by the International Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Ifpma).

“We fully agree with the goal that COVID-19 vaccines are distributed quickly and fairly around the world. But as we have always said, a suspension is the simple but incorrect answer to a complex problem,” said said Ifpma in a press release.

WTO discussions

The latest debates ended in failure because in the WTO, decisions are taken by consensus, so that each member country has a voice and has a right of veto.

Those who vetoed any possibility of freeing the patents and authorizing a global transfer of this key information on Wednesday had been the United States – home of producers Pfizer, Modena and Johnson and Johnson -, the countries of the European Union – headquarters of BioNTech. laboratories. and AstraZeneca-, United Kingdom – the other headquarters of AstraZeneca-, Switzerland – the headquarters of Novartis and GSK-, Norway – another power in the pharmaceutical sector- and non-producing countries but allies of the White House such as Canada, Australia, Japan, Chile, Colombia and Brazil.

New Zealand became the first country to change positions after encountering the American turn“

The United States trade official acknowledged that “these negotiations will take time, given the nature of the institution, being consensus-based”, but was clear in announcing that her government would join the field, led by India and South Africa, and made up of Argentina. , among others, who will lead the order.

The initiative is supported by two major producers such as China -house of Sinopharm, Sinovac Biotech and CanSino laboratories- and India -the country with the greatest industrial capacity in this field, but currently plunged into a health crisis which has slowed down its important exports-, and not yet unknown in which position to take Russia, the power that sends its vaccines to all continents, mainly Sputnik V.

The turn given by the United States hardly adds a voice in the official; Politically, however, he could drag his non-producer allies, including those who have yet to take a stand like Uruguay, and, no doubt, they will leave their European partners in an uncomfortable situation, among them voices are already being heard. against the uneven distribution of vaccines in the world, mainly that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“This change of position by the United States is a very strong signal that intellectual property is indeed a huge barrier to access to vaccines. The fact that the United States has declared this change of position is an acknowledgment that the solutions proposed so far are not effective in achieving an equitable distribution of vaccines, ”responded the MSF Campaign for Access to Medicines.

This Wednesday New Zealand became the first country to change its position after the American turning point was known: it went from undecided to declaring itself in favor of patent exemption to allow any laboratory in the world to produce the vaccines that exist against the coronavirus.

The discussion, framed in an old debate on intellectual property protections, now focuses on the lifting of patents, royalties and protections for industrial designs and confidential information to help expand the production and development of vaccines in a shortage situation.

The goal is to put the rules on hold for several years, long enough to fight and defeat the pandemic.

One of the main promoters of this initiative is the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Patent exemptions, they argued, are part of the tools of the WTO and there is no better time to use them than during a pandemic such as the coronavirus, the only one in a century, which has already claimed 3.2 million lives, infected more than 437 million people and devastated economies.