For some experts, release patents for Covid-19 vaccines it could cope with severe inequality in global distribution.
Up to now, according to information from Our World in Data, only the 2.7% of the population in low-income countries have received at least one dose.
On October 14, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director of the World Trade Organization (WTO), stated that formal negotiations on a temporary exemption from intellectual property rules to boost access to biologics were “stuck“.
But Okonjo-Iweala was optimistic. He said informal talks had intensified but, so far, no results.
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The patents of the vaccines against Covid-19, obtained with public resources
The intellectual property exemption proposal has been defended by the scientific community, which argues that vaccine manufacturers have relied heavily on public funding.
Según Health Policy Watch, it is estimated that, collectively, some companies that own the intellectual property rights have benefited from a government subsidy of around $ 110 billion.
Forbes published in December 2020 that the Moderna vaccine alone was financed almost exclusively by the US government.
In May of this year, The United States surprised the world by announcing its intention to support the WTO proposal and reported that it would temporarily relinquish intellectual property rights to Covid-19 vaccines. But in five months, this has not materialized.
For now, Okonjo-Iweala said he believed that WTO members could “find a pragmatic compromise on exempting intellectual property” that would guarantee equitable access, while preserving incentives for research and innovation.
It should be remembered that, although the declaration of the G7 leaders to donate 1 billion doses of vaccines over the next year was good news, this it falls too short with respect to the more than 11,000 million doses that the World Health Organization estimates necessary.
Although high-income countries contributed to the formation and financing of COVAX and the COVAX Fund, responsible for equitable global access, según Journals Plos “Bilateral contracts with pharmaceutical companies have monopolized most of the available doses.”
An example, the article says, is the case of Indian vaccine manufacturers, who had to redirect their supplies – previously committed – to cope with the massive increase in Covid-19 cases in India during the second quarter of 2021.
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