THE RUT over property rights of Covid-19 vaccines the World Trade Organization (WTO) is stuck in, which is binding fair distribution of vaccines and related medication to underdeveloped countries, including South Africa and India, has undermined support for globalisation, Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist, has warned.
He said on Friday that this was leading to a more divided world with untold consequences going forward.
This comes as the WTO, due to hold its Ministerial Conference in two weeks, has failed to respond to a proposal by South Africa and India for a simple waiver of intellectual property for Covid-19 not only vaccines, but tests and treatments, 20 months ago.
The two countries, cosponsored by 100 others had proposed the waiver of certain provisions of the WTO’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) to remove the IP barriers now limiting global production and access to the medications.
Speaking at the People’s Vaccine Alliance press conference, Stiglitz said the current proposal that was being discussed was an agreement between the US, Europe, South Africa and India, except it was a peculiar agreement, which three of those four said they didn't agree.
The raging arguments over the text and legal certainty of the agreement has delayed provision of essential products during the crises and also hamstrung companies from producing the medication lest they face challenges ahead.
“There’s a very easy way of getting that legal certainty: a clean vaccine waiver along the lines that was proposed originally. Let me stop there and say just one more thing: the consequences of this, not only for the lives of so many people and the health of so many people are clear, but the fact that the advanced countries, in Europe in particular, are not willing to put the lives into account of millions of people all over the world,” he said.
According to UNAIDS figures, 75 percent of people in high-income countries are fully vaccinated today while less than 13 percent of people in low-income countries are vaccinated with an overall 20 million lives lost.
“What is certain is that there is uncertainty in this text. And the point of the waiver, is to say let’s get rid of the legal uncertainty, because legal uncertainty is itself a barrier. What company wants to enter and start producing if it’s going to be sued? And so what we want is that legal certainty,” Stiglitz said.
The WTO has drawn fire after three of its members,the European Union, Switzerland, and the UK - have blocked the rest of the world. To try to break this blockade instigated at the start of this year the WTO Director General brought together the EU, South Africa, India, and the US, but that process ended with a text that would not remove the IP barriers now limiting global production and access said to have potential of adding some new constraints to existing WTO flexibilities. This text has been rejected worldwide.
UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima said this should have been simple and straightforward, and should have happened long ago.
“It would have allowed qualified manufacturers in developing countries – and we know they’re there – to produce this life-saving vaccine, helping secure the supply that was needed for people in those countries. Instead, negotiation has been derailed by a number of rich countries. They chose instead to protect the monopolies and profits of pharma companies, and millions of people have died who shouldn’t have died,“ Byanyima said.
Fatima Hassan, the founder and director of the Health Justice Initiative in Cape Town, said the WTO was no longer fit for purpose, particularly in the lead-up to this Ministerial Conference.
"There’s been a shameful delay in the middle of a pandemic for 18 months,“ she said.
Meanwhile, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos last month, global pharmaceutical group Pfizer announced that it would provide all its current and future patent-protected medicines and vaccines available in the US or EU, on a not-for-profit basis to 45 lower-income countries.
Under the “Accord for a Healthier World” Pfizer offered that Rwanda, Ghana, Malawi, Senegal and Uganda would be the first five African countries to benefit from the not-for-profit drugs rolled out at a manufacturing price.
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