By Haruna Gimba with agency report
The World Trade Organization (WTO) hailed a breakthrough between the European Union, the United States, India and South Africa on waiving intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines.
WTO’s Director-General, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the compromise was a major step forward in a bid to end the logjam at the global trade body.
However, she cautioned that some of the details on waiving WTO rules on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) still needed to be fleshed out and it would need the backing of all WTO members to come into force.
“This is a major step forward and this compromise is the result of many long and difficult hours of negotiations. But we are not there yet. We have more work to do to ensure that we have the support of the entire WTO membership,” Okonjo-Iweala said
Since October 2020, South Africa and India have called for IP rights to be temporarily lifted for coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic in order to boost production and address the gaping inequality in access between rich and poor nations.
However, the idea has met with fierce opposition from pharmaceutical giants and most of their host countries.
They have argued that patents are not the main roadblocks to scaling up production and warn the move could hamper innovation.
‘Wrong solution’: pharma lobby
Dr Okonjo-Iweala stressed that internal domestic consultations were going on in the four parties to the compromise agreement, and some points still needed smoothing out.
But the former Nigerian finance minister said work would start immediately to widen the discussion to all 164 WTO members.
Switzerland, home to several major pharmaceutical companies, has notably repeatedly voiced its unwillingness to budge.
She said: “In the WTO we decide by consensus, and this has not yet been achieved. We are ready to roll up our sleeves again to bring about a full agreement as quickly as possible.
