There’s a chance to end this. South Africa and India have proposed an IP waiver to the World Trade Organisation that would allow governments to waive intellectual property rights that companies hold on COVID-19 medical technologies for the duration of the pandemic.
If successful, this would remove some of the critical legal barriers that other manufacturers face in producing treatments, vaccines, tests and PPE. More than a hundred other countries are now supporting this proposal.
However, the UK is one of a small number of governments which are seeking to block it. Public money spent on 6 Vaccines – 7,420,000,000
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COUNTRIES OPPOSE THE WAIVER INCLUDING THE EU, UK AND USA
I would urge you to write to your MP and consider making the following points
- Many vaccines and tools have received huge amounts of public funding. More than £7 billion of public money has gone into the six frontrunner COVID-19 vaccines and so they should be considered a global public good, not the property of pharmaceutical companies.
- There shouldn’t be competition between countries for COVID-19 medical products – if we maximise supply, we can ensure fair access for all.
- Just vaccinating people in the UK isn’t enough – as long as the pandemic continues, there is the real threat of new variants arising which may make these vaccines ineffective. This pandemic isn’t over until it’s over for everyone.
Ask them to support the early day motion 1451 on intellectual property and COVID-19 response to be debated in Parliament
