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TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Mar21/10) Geneva, 8 Mar (D. Ravi Kanth) – The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for triggering the TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization on grounds that it would help many countries “with manufacturing capacity” to produce their own vaccines by waiving intellectual property rules as provided for in the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement. Among the menu of approaches that he proposed during his press conference on Friday, Dr Tedros said “this is an unprecedented time, and WHO believes that this is the time to trigger that provision and waive patent rights.” “We thank South Africa and India for their proposal to the World Trade Organization to waive patents on medical products for COVID-19 until the end of this unprecedented pandemic,” Dr Tedros said. The TRIPS waiver proposal is co-sponsored by 57 developing countries with support from 61 other countries at the WTO. It seeks to temporarily suspend provisions in the TRIPS Agreement relating to copyrights, industrial designs, patents, and protection of undisclosed information in combating the COVID-19 pandemic by ramping up production of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines across all countries till the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, is contained. More importantly, the TRIPS waiver is aimed at stopping the spread of the virus the world over to ensure that countries are not overwhelmed by new mutations of the virus in some countries. The underlying rationale is that vaccination in all countries without the “Me First” approach is crucial to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, said a person, who asked not to be quoted. The other approaches outlined by the WHO DG include: (1) connecting “companies who are producing vaccines with other companies who have excess capacity to fill and finish,” a “matchmaking” service between vaccine producers and companies with capacity; (2) “bilateral technology transfer, through voluntary licensing from a company that owns patents on a vaccine to another company who can produce them”, but that “the main disadvantage of this approach is the lack of transparency;” and (3) “coordinated technology transfer” involving universities and manufacturers to other companies through a global mechanism which would also facilitate the training of staff at the recipient companies, and coordinate investment in infrastructure – this approach would provide “transparency and a more coherent global approach that contributes to regional health security.” Dr Tedros said that “next week, WHO and our COVAX partners will meet with partners from governments and industry to identify bottlenecks in production and discuss how to solve them.” Surprisingly, the WHO DG did not indicate whether the WTO is also participating in the same conference, said a person, who asked not to be quoted. It appears that there is a turf battle going on between the WHO and the WTO which are pursuing in parallel the vaccines accessibility initiatives as well as the TRIPS waiver on which the WHO is openly canvassing for the waiver, while the WTO, the nodal agency, appears to be maintaining a studied silence, the person said. Meanwhile, “Big Pharma is fighting for tight control over COVID-19 vaccine production, [limiting] availability worldwide while reaping billions,” according to a report in the Intercept news portal. According to the author of the Intercept report, Mr Lee Fang, the drug lobby has asked the Biden administration “to punish Hungary, Colombia, Chile, and other countries for seeking to ramp up the production of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics without express permission from pharmaceutical companies.” “The sanctions are being urged by the drug industry, which has filed hundreds of pages of documents to the Office of the US Trade Representative outlining the alleged threat posed by any effort to challenge “basic intellectual property protections” in the response to the coronavirus pandemic,” Mr Fang reported. Mr Fang says “the drug industry has sharply criticized any attempt to share vaccine patents or the technological knowledge needed to manufacture them, despite global need.” WTO DG’S RESPONSE In her first virtual meeting with the WTO staff on Friday, DG Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said there is going to be a major meeting but did not divulge any details about the meeting and where it will be held and in what format it will be held, said people familiar with the development. Against the backdrop of the demands for transparency in the functioning of the WTO, it would have been appropriate to divulge all the details about the proposed meeting, people said. During her one-hour meeting on Friday with the “Friends of the System”, coordinated by Switzerland, Ms Okonjo- Iweala also informed the participants that she is going to meet “vaccine producers” in the week beginning on Monday, people said. She apparently suggested that, during her stint as the chair of the Board of Geneva-based GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance), several international organizations used to meet regularly, people said. Ms Okonjo-Iweala said the WTO’s contribution to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine production is her top priority along with concluding the fisheries subsidies agreement, people said. She apparently expressed concern on the export restrictions imposed by the European Union, underscoring the need for transparency, the person said. THE TRIPS WAIVER At the meeting, she was asked about her assessment on the TRIPS waiver to which she said that India and South Africa remain seriously committed to an outcome on the waiver. However, she expressed doubts whether the waiver could solve the problem for ramping up vaccine production, people said. It is clear from her statements on 15 February and 1 March that the TRIPS waiver is not her priority as compared to the WHO DG’s emphasis on the need to trigger the waiver to address the shortage of coronavirus vaccines. In a press release titled “DG Okonjo-Iweala hits the ground running” and posted online on Friday, the WTO said that “Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala finished her first week at the WTO by meeting with ambassadors and groups of members for solutions-oriented conversations aimed at finding ways for the organization to deliver results in 2021 and beyond.” “On 5 March, the new Director-General met with the Group of Least Developed Countries as well as the Friends of the System, an alliance of small and mid-sized members from different regions and development levels that are committed to a well-functioning multilateral trading system,” the WTO said, suggesting that “DG Okonjo-Iweala also addressed the first meeting of the Structured Discussions on Trade and Environmental Sustainability, at the invitation of the 53-member group (EU’s 27 members and 26 other members largely drawn from the Ottawa Group) that is exploring ways trade and the WTO can better contribute to achieving environmental goals.” But no substantive details were provided about the meeting between the DG and the “Friends of the System” in the WTO’s press release.
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