In his media briefing on December 22, World Health Organization director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that blanket booster programmes are likely to prolong the Covid-19 pandemic, rather than end it, “by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunities to spread and mutate”. The Omicron variant is seen widely as an example of that type of mutation. An angry Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the African Union’s African Vaccine Delivery Alliance, told the BBC that the Omicron outbreak was the “failure of the world to vaccinate in an equitable, urgent and speedy manner” and “a result of hoarding by high-income countries of the world”. Foreseeing this development, India and South Africa co-authored a proposal to the World Trade Organization in October last year, requesting that certain obligations in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) be waived with respect to the prevention, containment or treatment of Covid-19. On May 21, a number of countries (including India and South Africa) issued a revised proposal specifying areas where this should be waived – such as in relation to diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines, medical devices and personal protective equipment. The proposal was to be presented to the 12th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, scheduled for earlier this month in Geneva. But, with just days to go, the WTO postponed the meeting , citing new quarantine requirements in Switzerland. Yet, we continue to hold big sporting events such as the Tokyo Olympics. And at a time when even the heads-of-state meetings are held virtually, including the G20 and East Asia summits, the WTO head thinks that meeting virtually does not offer the kind of interaction necessary for holding complex negotiations on politically sensitive issues. The EU, UK, Switzerland and Norway are among those holding the world hostage by refusing to support this intellectual property waiver proposal that would help speed up the world’s recovery from the pandemic. As for the US, though President Joe Biden has said Washington would support a temporary lifting of IP rights on the vaccines, he has not taken a leadership role in facilitating it. Over 100 countries support India and South Africa’s proposal for a waiver, but the WTO remains at an impasse. Countries opposing it question whether such a waiver could be effective in delivering a greater number of vaccines to the global population. Proponents of the waiver see vaccine equity as a human rights issue. Ironically, the very countries that like to lecture others about human rights are the ones fiercely opposing a waiver. Why it’s in rich countries’ own interests to stop hoarding vaccines The Geneva-based South Centre – a think tank for the Global South – has been providing briefing papers from experts to support the IP waiver. In one, Professor Srividhya Ragavan, a law professor at Texas A&M University, argues that a waiver would be critical in removing barriers to global health equity. Ragavan refutes the claim by pharmaceutical companies – that was also made to stop patent waivers on HIV-Aids treatment decades ago – that IP protection is needed to recoup their investments in research and development. Citing data from the Peterson Institute of International Studies, he points out that most of the Covid-19 vaccines have been developed using public funds. Public funds received by Pfizer (BioNTech) reached US$5.95 billion, Moderna US$5.35 billion, Johnson & Johnson US$2 billion and AstraZeneca (Oxford) US$1.6 billion. “Considering that each of these vaccine developers have benefited from public funds, their claims for private rights remain unfounded,” he notes. There are two options available for making vaccine equitability possible under WTO-Trips rules. One is compulsory licensing where patent monopolies could be overridden on public interest grounds. But, Ragavan argues, it is cumbersome and a time-consuming legal minefield. The waiving of patents is an easier path. The objective of a waiver is to facilitate local manufacturing, and a number of countries – notably Indonesia and Bangladesh – have indicated that they have the capacity to produce vaccines but could not do so without the IP waiver. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the US and EU have pushed back on compulsory licensing by using economic pressure on countries. The so-called “pharma lobby” has huge influence on Western governments and the media. In 2020, industry lobbyists successfully blocked attempts by the US government to include language in the US$8.3 billion emergency coronavirus spending bill that would have threatened intellectual property rights for any vaccines and treatments the government decides are priced unfairly. Cold shoulder from Western vaccine makers, but WHO in talks with China The Western media has hardly raised the issue of global justice regarding the enormous profits Western vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer are making, while many poor developing countries have been forced to go into debt to buy these vaccines. In March, the Philippines was offered a US$400 million loan by the Asian Development Bank to buy Covid-19 vaccines , and in June the World Bank approved a US$500 million loan to Indonesia for the same purpose. Are debt traps being set for developing countries by Western countries’ refusal to waive the monopoly patent rights of pharmaceutical companies? If the proposal were to go to a vote at the WTO ministerial conference, at least 123 WTO member countries would be required to support the waiver, and under the current circumstances, countries would be reluctant to be seen opposing it. Russia and China have already indicated their support for the IP waiver. Thus, the WTO’s indefinite postponement of the ministerial conference suits those rich countries opposed to the waiver – they will not have to demonstrate their opposition to global justice. Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lankan-born journalist, media analyst and international communications expert based in Singapore