The United States wants the patent on corona vaccines to be released. US trade envoy Katherine Tai says to the international news agency Bloomberg that President Biden wants to persuade other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to support a proposal on this.
That proposal comes from developing countries within the WTO. They have been arguing for the release of the patents for some time. That would mean that other companies could copy existing corona vaccines without being fined. Residents of developing countries can then be vaccinated more quickly, they argue.
India and South Africa, in particular, are pushing for a temporary withdrawal of the patents. Those two countries have been hit hard by the corona pandemic.
Course change
Earlier, the US rejected the proposal of the developing countries. But now Tai says, “We are in favor of lifting the protection, we are in favor of what the proposers want to achieve. That is more access, more production and more injections.”
The European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland, Brazil and Norway are against the proposal. It is still unclear whether they will change their position after the US change of course.
According to lawyer Ellen ‘t Hoen, who specializes in the intellectual property of medicines, there must always be consensus among all member states at the WTO. “The US and the EU are normally opposed to these kinds of issues. If one of them changes course, it can quickly yield results.”
CEO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the world health organization WHO is optimistic: on Twitter he speaks of “a crucial moment in the fight against corona”.
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