Dozens of countries have reviewed a proposal before the World Trade Organization (WTO) on patent exemptions for essential medical equipment to combat COVID-19, mainly the vaccine. But to achieve equality in the distribution of vaccines will require other measures such as technology transfer and improving supply chains.
This Tuesday, the WTO, the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) called on world leaders to make a “new commitment” to work for a more equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines around the world if they want to defeat the epidemic.
The heads of these United Nations agencies asked for 50,000 million dollars in order to facilitate access to vaccines in developing countries and finance other measures that accelerate the exit from the pandemic.
Leaders of global health, commerce and finance agencies said this financial effort will prevent a “two-speed” economic recovery.
These funds would allow “a considerable increase in the production of diagnostics, treatments, oxygen, medical equipment and vaccines with a view to equitable distribution,” the WHO chief explained at a press conference.
The proposal is in line with economic analyzes from the International Chamber of Commerce and the Eurasia Group, which advocate relatively modest investment by governments compared to the trillions spent on national stimulus plans and the trillions lost in economic output.
According to many observers, vaccine inequalities between rich and poor countries complicate and prolong a pandemic that has already killed more than 3.5 million people worldwide.
“It is very clear that there can be no global resistance to the COVID-19 pandemic without ending the health crisis. Access to vaccines is key for both,” they write. “Ending the pandemic is possible and requires global action today.”
All of them ask that the G7, at its next summit in the UK later this month, agree on “a more coordinated strategy, backed by new funds, to vaccinate the planet.”
These investments, estimates recently prepared by the IMF, could generate by 2025 an additional global production of about 9 trillion dollars, 60% of it in developing countries and the rest in developed countries.
Kristalina Georgieva, director of the IMF, insisted that two-speed vaccination, with countries advancing rapidly in immunization while others developing more slowly, can slow down the global economic recovery.
This also has risks in the health field, since countries with a slower vaccination rate “can be breeding grounds for virus mutations unless we accelerate the end of the pandemic everywhere,” he said.
Increase local vaccine production
The Director General of the WTO, Ngonzi Okonjo-Iweala, called on countries to renounce restrictions on trade in vaccines and the raw materials necessary for their production and reiterated her call to increase local production capacities for doses, thanks to technology transfer.
The WTO director added that the world currently suffers from a major bottleneck in the production of vaccines, since the global manufacturing capacity before the pandemic was about 5 billion doses and now it needs to manufacture two or three times more.
“The world normally has the capacity to make about 5 billion doses of vaccines, but now we need between 10 and 15 billion doses, depending on whether we need booster doses,” he said.
Okonjo-Iweala noted that not enough has been invested in manufacturing capacity and is currently working with manufacturers, the World Health Organization and the Vaccine Alliance, Gavi, among others, to try to rectify this situation.
“Not enough is being invested to expand this production, so we are working with manufacturers to rectify this, debating possible transfer of technology and knowledge, or agreements on intellectual matters,” he said, alluding to the suspension of patents that were negotiates in the WTO.
The president of the World Bank, David Malpass, insisted that “it is urgent to make vaccines available to everyone”, so he asked countries with a large number of stored doses to release and share them as soon as possible.
Malpass pointed out that his entity has 12,000 million dollars to provide financial assistance to countries where vaccination is still insufficient, in order to increase distribution and carry out awareness campaigns on the need to be immunized.
Give up patents, something still far off
Those responsible for the WHO, WTO, WB and IMF recall that currently the fight against the pandemic is being very unequal, due to the greater access of large economies and developed countries to vaccines.
“The vast majority of the population in developing countries, including health workers on the front line, have not yet received even the first dose of the vaccine, and low-income nations have only reached 1% of the doses administered,” they recall. in the joint statement.
They warn that unequal access to vaccines “not only leaves millions of people vulnerable to the virus, but also makes it easier for new variants of it to emerge and spread throughout the world,” which would also end up harming the countries where vaccination campaigns are advanced.
In early May, the possible release of the vaccines was endorsed by US President Joe Biden. He has also received support from other global leaders, such as the Presidents of Russia and China, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
The decision put pressure on opponents of the measure such as the European Union and Switzerland, which are home to numerous drug manufacturers, and many hoped they would follow suit.
“We must guarantee access to vaccines and medicines to face the pandemic,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week, before the Global Solutions forum, organized by the Italian presidency of the G20.
Covax is directly involved in this, to which Germany has so far contributed more than one billion euros, in addition to having committed to supply some 30 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the year, destined for the poorest countries.
The fight against the pandemic will not be possible until it can be overcome on a global scale, the Foreign Minister recalled, thus admitting the possibility of its own distribution and production in those countries.
Merkel defended, however, that this cannot go against the intellectual protection of these vaccines, a position that her government maintains above the pronouncements in favor of patent liberalization.
Three sources close to the talks said US support for patent releases is likely to have the opposite effect.
“There is an ocean between this waiver proposal and what the United States suggested,” said a source involved in the talks who asked to remain anonymous.
“There is definitely no quick fix for this.”
The main sponsors of the exemption are due to present the new draft at the private WTO meeting on Monday, where other key players such as the United States and the EU are ready to give their first official feedback on its content.
The meeting is critical because it will determine whether the talks, ongoing since October, advance to “text-based negotiations,” as CEO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala seeks.
Two key aspects of the draft waivers that may put off reluctant countries are its expansive scope and length of time.
Although US Trade Representative Katherine Tai previously said she would only focus on increasing vaccine access and equity, the scope of the new draft is much broader and includes not just vaccines, but diagnostic devices as well. therapeutic and medical, among others.
“When there’s a big bomb like the one in the United States that says it will support the waiver, people expected the revised proposal to narrow the scope,” said a Geneva-based business source.
The new draft also sets a time period for the temporary exemption of “at least three years” and gives the WTO’s highest decision-making body the ability to determine its final termination date.
However, with the need for the 164 members of the WTO to agree by consensus, any country could block the lifting of the exemption, creating what one delegate called a “forever exemption.”
With information from AFP, EFE and Reuters
