WTO battle over Covid-19 vaccine patents must not hold back world’s vaccination drive

Name: India’s mass-vaccination drive falters as country hits 20 million coronavirus cases
Uploaded: 2021-05-07T06:30:17.000Z
Duration: 3 min 26 s
Description: India’s mass-vaccination drive falters as country hits 20 million coronavirus cases

Patents are not a critical barrier in the complex challenge of vaccine manufacture and roll-out, as seen in India

But arguing about patent waivers is distracting – people are dying in alarming numbers and our urgent priority must be to get shots into arms

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A relative of a Covid-19 victim mourns at a crematorium in Jammu, India, on April 25. India’s Serum Institute, in collaborating with AstraZeneca, has complete access to all the necessary vaccine IP, yet has been unable to meet local and international needs. Photo: AP

David Dodwell

Published: 2:30pm, 7 May 2021Updated: 10:29pm, 7 May 2021

As big pharmaceutical companies this week faced off in the World Trade Organization against the 100-strong People’s Vaccine alliance in a battle over whether to uphold or waive Covid-19-related intellectual property rights – and US President Joe Biden broke with decades of strident support of US companies’ IP rights by backing a waiver – one had to wonder if the guns are being pointed in the wrong direction.

Pharmaceutical giants can be hate figures because of their sometimes-extortionate drug pricing and profits. But as funeral pyres burn across India, thousands die daily in Brazil, and with the entire African continent still short of Covid-19 vaccines, the challenge is to get millions of jabs in arms as quickly as possible. If an IP waiver does not achieve this, it is a red herring.

Evidence is embarrassingly strong that the rich are hoarding the world’s vaccines. As a Nature magazine feature summarised in March, we need 11 billion vaccine doses – assuming two per person – to immunise 70 per cent of the world and achieve herd immunity.

So far, 8.6 billion doses have been ordered, 6 billion of these by rich countries. The US, European Union, Britain and several other affluent countries have bought at least four vaccine doses per adult in their populations.

With this hoarding, and a normal global production capacity of 3.5 billion doses, most people living in the poor parts of the world are unlikely to get vaccinated against Covid-19 until at least the end of 2022. Africa’s 1.2 billion people have so far received a bare 37 million doses.

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India’s mass-vaccination drive falters as country hits 20 million coronavirus cases

As US Senator Bernie Sanders complained: “There is something morally objectionable about rich countries being able to get that vaccine, and yet millions and billions of people in poor countries are unable to afford it.” There is also widespread recognition that none of us is safe until all of us are.

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