WTO must act now to approve COVID vaccine patent waiver

The EU is accused of refusing to share COVID 19 vaccine patents to scientists across the world in order to speed up the production of the jabs and end the epidemic. India and South Africa have proposed a waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID 19 vaccines and treatments, but they face opposition from developed members such as the European Union, Britain and Switzerland.

They say it would be better to use flexibilities in existing WTO rules, which allow countries to grant licences to local producers. Mary Robinson, Chair of The Elders and a former president of Ireland, said the opposition to patent waiving of vaccines and treatments against COVID 19 is simply unconscionable. She said that allowing the vaccine to spread around the world is a recipe for new mutations to develop and that they will indiscriminately harm us all. This waiver, which has dominated WTO talks for more than a year, is a necessary global solution to end the epidemic.

One powerful voice at the WTO has undermined this effort, and that must change. The European Union is the biggest obstacle to this effective solution to increase the supply of lifesaving vaccines, treatments and tests, hasten the end of the epidemic and put solidarity at the heart of the world's response. The governments were due to meet at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva this week, but were postponed because of the risks posed by Omicron, to decide whether a waiver on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights TRIPS - the world's most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property - would finally be approved for Covid vaccines and supplies. The TRIPS Council can be summoned at any time to put forward a written proposal for the WTO General Council to formalise. In October 2020 a waiver was proposed by South Africa and India and now has the backing of over 100 nations. READ MORE: France turns to the EU Army as the Channel migrant crisis gets out of control.

The proposal has been blocked by only a handful of wealthy countries, including the UK, Switzerland and Germany, where major pharmaceutical companies are headquartered. Despite the postponement, governments can still take immediate action to approve the waiver this week. WTO director general Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stressed that negotiations must continue and that delegates should be fully empowered to close as many gaps as possible as this new variant reminds us again of the urgency of the work we are charged with. The union believes that positive steps can be made to vaccinate the world. The European Union wants to ban the word Christmas as it's 'offensive' INSIGHT Grassroots Conservatives turn on Boris and pick surprising successor REACTION BLOG The CGU cites a study by Oxford University that shows a pathway for the global community to establish regional centres capable of producing eight billion doses of vaccine by May 2022 to help end the epidemic. Stephen Cotton, chair of the CGU, and General Secretary of the International Transport Workers' Federation ITF, said: "I speak directly to the heads of state for the UK, Germany and Switzerland, when I say that your decisions are putting millions of lives and livelihoods at risk." The world is watching you, as panic and anxiety spread at the rise of a new variant that may have been prevented if you had acted sooner. You must act now or forever to hold the preventable deaths of millions more on your conscience, because the waiver can be agreed this week. Over four million people have died from COVID 19 since the waiver was first proposed. The Biden Administration, which gave away more doses than all other governments combined, made clear in a statement last week that the waiver of TRIPS is an urgent and essential next step to end the epidemic.