United States: the debate around the releases …

After the President of the United States, Joe Biden, said his country would become “an arsenal of vaccines for other countries” During a shocking speech for the first 100 days of management, rumors began to spread that the power could support demand from countries like India and South Africa for patenting vaccines while the pandemic lasts.

In this tone, the representative of the North American Foreign Trade, Katherine Tai, judged “unacceptable” the gap which exists in the access to vaccines between the most developed countries and the countries with less resources. “The pharmaceutical industry must make sacrifices in times of crisis”Tai thinks.

However, Presidential Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted that, at the moment, there is no definition regarding the release of patents to support and stressed that there are other ways of working together to increase access to vaccines in all countries, such as association agreements between laboratories and local producers. Something like what happened in Argentina between the Gamaleya Institute and the Richmond laboratory to produce the Sputnik V VIDA

“The White House is considering options to maximize global production and supply of vaccines at the lowest cost, including support for a proposed exemption from intellectual property rights, ”Psaki said at a press conference.

Until, The United States, like other developed countries where vaccines against Covid-19 have been developed, maintain a position against the publication of patents before the World Trade Organization (WTO), where India and South Africa have rallied the will of dozens of countries to seek the suspension of patents as long as the pandemic lasts and to speed up vaccination campaigns.

“There are a lot of different ways to do it. Right now, that’s one of the ways, but we have to assess what makes the most sense,” insisted the White House spokeswoman.

What lit a glimmer of hope in the face of the global demand for patent release was the speech of Biden, who vowed to turn his country “into an arsenal of vaccines for other countries.”, just as the United States was the arsenal of democracy during World War II “and recognized that help is needed because” there is not a wall high enough to prevent the virus. “

Laboratories they oppose to the granting of patents and to promote that, in all cases, partnerships with local laboratories be favored on the grounds that without strict production control, the quality of the doses could be reduced.