US Support for Vaccine Waiver Welcome, but More Needed

Credit: UNICEF/Nahom Tesfaye By Jomo Kwame SundaramKUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 11 2021 (IPS) Thanks to President Biden, the US now supports a suspension of intellectual property (IP) rights to increase vaccine supplies. However, without vaccine developers sharing tacit technical knowledge for safe vaccine mass production, it will be difficult to rapidly scale up vaccine output. Waiver delayed is waiver denied The CEOs of Pfizer and Astra Zeneca had recently asked the US President to reject the waiver request. Nevertheless, on 5 May, US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai announced US support for a vaccine waiver. The hope is that many, mainly rich countries will now stop opposing the developing country waiver proposal. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver request by South Africa and India also includes COVID-19 tests, treatments and personal protective equipment (PPE), albeit only for the duration of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the WHO Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) remains grossly underfunded, and thus unable to achieve most of its objectives. Many developing countries are still not even able to effectively do mass testing to ascertain those infected and follow up measures. The developing world also faces huge supply gaps, and hence, long delays in treatment. Many ‘frontline workers’ in poor countries remain poorly protected. All this, of course, adversely compromises the world’s ability to c...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Development & Aid Global Headlines Health Humanitarian Emergencies TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news