UPDATE:
The Joe Biden-led administration in the United States has come out in support of waiving the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on Covid-19 vaccines. However, wealthy countries like the UK and Germany are still against the proposal to waive TRIPS. Reason? They don’t want big pharma to keep their hands off the huge profits.
Germany and the UK continue to vehemently oppose the plan, despite their potential to massively increase vaccine production and save millions of lives, while Canada, Italy and France still remain on the fence.
The fight doesn’t end here. We must keep raising our voices until there is global “consensus" to the waiver proposal.
____________________________________________________________________________
To
Ngozi Okonzo-Iweala, Director General, World Trade Organisation
A few weeks ago India and South Africa pushed for a temporary waiver of vaccine patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines that would allow other countries to make their own versions of Covid vaccines and treatments.
Governments in the global north are currently voting on this game-changing plan. The success of the move will depend on the positions taken by the US and governments of other developed countries. This temporary waiver on intellectual property rights will help end the crushing vaccine inequality we’re currently facing and will be transformative in getting the pandemic under control.
We’ve been seeing the devastating effects of Covid in India these past few weeks - it’s a human catastrophe! Cases are spiralling out of control and vital medical equipment is in desperately short supply. We’ve seen record breaking figures of over 4 lakh cases reported in a day.
Big Pharma is doing everything it can to prevent its vaccine secrets being shared, and are pulling out all the stops to ensure that doesn't happen.
Let’s show President Biden and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that there’s overwhelming public support for this life-saving plan. Over a 100 lawmakers in the US have already written to President Biden urging him to support the waiver.
According to the WHO, over 87% of the Covid vaccine supply has gone to higher income countries! If developing countries have to wait years to get the vaccine, it not only puts millions of lives at risk - it increases the chances of a new, deadlier strain of the virus emerging, and could put us all back to square one.
We need to let the US government know that we can’t put big pharma’s profits over the chance to save millions of lives. With the way the virus has been spreading, one thing is for sure - No one is safe from Covid-19 until everyone is safe.
Sources:
UPDATE:
The Joe Biden-led administration in the United States has come out in support of waiving the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on Covid-19 vaccines. However, wealthy countries like the UK and Germany are still against the proposal to waive TRIPS. Reason? They don’t want big pharma to keep their hands off the huge profits.
Germany and the UK continue to vehemently oppose the plan, despite their potential to massively increase vaccine production and save millions of lives, while Canada, Italy and France still remain on the fence.
The fight doesn’t end here. We must keep raising our voices until there is global “consensus" to the waiver proposal.
____________________________________________________________________________
To
Ngozi Okonzo-Iweala, Director General, World Trade Organisation
A few weeks ago India and South Africa pushed for a temporary waiver of vaccine patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines that would allow other countries to make their own versions of Covid vaccines and treatments.
Governments in the global north are currently voting on this game-changing plan. The success of the move will depend on the positions taken by the US and governments of other developed countries. This temporary waiver on intellectual property rights will help end the crushing vaccine inequality we’re currently facing and will be transformative in getting the pandemic under control.
We’ve been seeing the devastating effects of Covid in India these past few weeks - it’s a human catastrophe! Cases are spiralling out of control and vital medical equipment is in desperately short supply. We’ve seen record breaking figures of over 4 lakh cases reported in a day.
Big Pharma is doing everything it can to prevent its vaccine secrets being shared, and are pulling out all the stops to ensure that doesn't happen.
Let’s show President Biden and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that there’s overwhelming public support for this life-saving plan. Over a 100 lawmakers in the US have already written to President Biden urging him to support the waiver.
According to the WHO, over 87% of the Covid vaccine supply has gone to higher income countries! If developing countries have to wait years to get the vaccine, it not only puts millions of lives at risk - it increases the chances of a new, deadlier strain of the virus emerging, and could put us all back to square one.
We need to let the US government know that we can’t put big pharma’s profits over the chance to save millions of lives. With the way the virus has been spreading, one thing is for sure - No one is safe from Covid-19 until everyone is safe.
Sources: