Nobel Peace Prize winners and former heads of state and government have called on President Joe Biden to join a proposal to temporarily lift patents on vaccines against COVID-19, AFP reported.
Such a decision is an important and necessary step to end the pandemic, say the 170 celebrities who signed the open letter. Among them are former French President Francois Hollande, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
“We are encouraged by the information that your administration is investigating the issue of the temporary waiver of intellectual property rights by the WHO during the pandemic, as proposed by South Africa and India,” reads the text, which was signed by the Nobel laureate. for Peace Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate in Medicine Françoise Barre-Sinus and Nobel Laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz.
The proposal was submitted to the WHO by South Africa and India on October 2 and received the support of dozens of developing and disadvantaged countries. But developed countries, or the countries where the headquarters of the large pharmaceutical groups that developed the vaccines are located, are trying to oppose the idea.
The text proposes to have a temporary exemption from certain obligations arising from the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, so that each party can produce vaccines without having to have a patent for them.
Most countries around the world are trying to vaccinate their populations as quickly as possible in an attempt to stop the progression of the disease and its variants.
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