Access Advocates Urge 11th Hour WTO Action on COVID IP Waiver – COVAX Strikes World Bank Deal on Vaccine Finance

New WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has urged WTO members to find a way to compromise, but rich and poor countries remain an at impasse.

 

Link to the source article >> https://healthpolicy-watch.news/89016-2/

Vaccine access advocates issued increasingly desperate, last minute calls upon the World Trade Organization to take action over a stalled initiative to impose a temporary waiver on intellectual property for COVID medicines, tests and vaccines – even as the initiative appeared doomed to a stalemate for the rest of the summer.

Ahead of the opening of Tuesday’s two-day meeting of the WTO General Council, Médecins Sans Frontières urged the European Union (EU), Norway, the UK, and Switzerland “to stop stalling the landmark proposal to waive intellectual property (IP) on lifesaving COVID-19 medical tools at the WTO, and join forces with more than 100 countries supporting it by openly engaging in formal negotiations to expedite the consensus.

“Since the proposal was first tabled nearly 10 months ago, the pandemic has worsened and increasingly hit many countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia, with the disease having killed officially more than 4 million people globally,” MSF noted, referring to a proposal by India and South Africa for a blanket waiver on WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), for COVID-related IP, which supporters say would lower prices faster and stimulate local vaccine and medicines production.

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