The US has U-turned on its prior stance on vaccines with the Biden administration throwing its support behind waiving intellectual property rights on Covid vaccines, potentially leading to more vaccine doses reaching the needy in developing nations.
President Joe Biden. Credit: Mike Beaty / Flickr
The US has changed its position regarding Covid vaccine intellectual property following calls from a number of nations. Credit: Mike Beaty / Flickr
The President has called for the sharing of technology involved in developing and rolling out the jabs in order to bring a faster end to the pandemic, the White House has revealed amid World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks about temporary waivers.
Read more: European Commission launches legal action against AstraZeneca
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai broke the news on Wednesday (May 5) evening, bowing to mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers.
In a statement, Tai said: “The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for Covid-19 vaccines. This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures."
"The administration's aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible," she added, suggesting that the US will continue to scale up production once supply to the American people is secured.
Stocks in major pharmaceutical companies, such as Moderna and Novavax, plummeted following the news.
John Nkengasong, the chair of the African Centre for Disease Control (CDC) referred to the decision as "leadership in action" in a tweet made following the announcement.
He subsequently referred to the ruling as a "great act of humanity."
Similarly, the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the event as a "monumental moment" in the fight against Covid.
Companies such as Pfizer, which are the primary players in global vaccine production, have reported massive profits from their vaccines.
Read more: Pfizer generates $3.5bn in Covid vaccine revenue as US drives demand
Biden's switch comes as countries such as India show massive spikes of Covid cases in recent weeks.
The WHO reported last week that India accounts for 46% of the new Covid cases last week and nearly a quarter of the deaths. In all, 5.7 million new cases were reported, 2.6 million of which were in India.
It also suggests the virus is spreading to more remote neighbours, such as Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The country also became the second to clock 20 million cases, behind only the US.
Tai's announcement comes just hours after a meeting with WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and a number of developing and developed nations, who unanimously agreed on the need for wider treatment to combat the virus.
As such, the director-general looks to encourage temporary waives over intellectual property to encourage and allow for developing nations to receive more vaccines. A proposal first made by South Africa and India back in October.
More than 100 countries have since affirmed their approval of the idea.
“The way the WTO handles this matter is critical,” Okonjo-Iweala told members of the meeting, stipulating the need for urgency regarding the situation.
She described it as the “moral and economic issue of our time".
“Vaccine policy is economic policy because the global economic recovery cannot be sustained unless we find a way to get equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics,” she added.
The Russian Sputnik V vaccine has seen widespread use in developing nations, according to Statista, likely owing to the fact it is reportedly significantly cheaper to produce.
This increased access to information may allow for both the domestic production of vaccines within developing nations as well as free access for nations such as the US to deliver vaccine shipment.
The EU has already been conducting a similar scheme, which may have played its role in hampering early vaccine rollout in the bloc.
Read more: EU won't renew AstraZeneca, J&J vaccine contracts, claims Italian news
However, a number of private healthcare players may be set to oppose the idea, under the primary assertion that waiving intellectual property rights may hinder future innovation or undermine the companies responses to the crisis.
Reuters reports that an industry lobby group would stand to oppose the waivers and to ensure anything agreed upon would be "as narrow as possible".
It is still unclear how European vaccine developers, such as AstraZeneca, will respond to the situation.
None of the major vaccine players have commented on the ruling as of yet.
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