CIVIL SOCIETY LETTER\u00a0SUPPORTING PROPOSAL BY INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA ON WAIVER FROM\u00a0CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF THE TRIPS AGREEMENT FOR THE PREVENTION,\u00a0CONTAINMENT AND TREATMENT OF COVID-19<\/strong><\/p>\nDear Members of the World Trade Organization,<\/p>\n
We the undersigned organisations call on all WTO Members to strongly support the adoption of the\u00a0decision text proposed by India and South Africa in their proposal for \u201cWaiver from certain provisions\u00a0of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID19\u201d (Waiver
\nProposal).<\/p>\n
When COVID-19 was declared to be a pandemic, there was overwhelming consensus that to curb the\u00a0spread of COVID-19, there was an urgent need for international collaboration to speed up product\u00a0development, scale up of manufacturing, expand the supply of effective medical technologies and\u00a0ensure everyone, everywhere is protected. There were even calls including from several Heads of State\u00a0for COVID-19 medical products to be treated as global public goods.<\/p>\n
Seven months into the pandemic, there is no meaningful global policy solution to ensure access. Instead,\u00a0there is an inequality of access to critical technologies that are needed to address the pandemic. Many\u00a0countries, especially developing and least developed countries struggling to contain COVID-19 have\u00a0experienced and are facing acute shortages of medical products, including access to diagnostic testing.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, wealthy nations representing only 13 percent of the global population have locked up at\u00a0least half the doses of the world\u2019s five leading potential vaccines.<\/p>\n
In this pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry has mainly pursued \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d approaches,\u00a0entrenching monopolistic intellectual property (IP) controls over COVID-19 health technologies that\u00a0restrict scale-up of manufacturing, lock out diversified suppliers, and undermine competition that\u00a0results in lower prices. A few companies, such as Astra Zeneca, have pledged not for profit prices during\u00a0the pandemic, and yet by maintaining control over these technologies, can unilaterally declare the end\u00a0of the pandemic and increase prices to maximise profits, even if it undermines international efforts to\u00a0save lives.<\/p>\n
The COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) launched by WHO (to voluntarily share knowledge,\u00a0IP and data), has been rejected by the pharmaceutical industry.4 Instead, companies continue to sign\u00a0secretive and restrictive licensing agreements. For example, Gilead Sciences\u2019 secret licensing\u00a0agreements for remdesivir, a medicine that was developed with substantial public funding, are restricted\u00a0to a few manufacturers of its choosing, thereby preventing low-cost supply to nearly half of the world\u2019s\u00a0population. Unsurprisingly, there have been global shortages of the medicine, with many developing\u00a0countries yet to see even a single vial of the treatment exported to them. Given the medicine\u2019s limited
\neffectiveness, we are deeply concerned that such an approach for a safe and effective therapy will\u00a0exclude even more people from treatment access.<\/p>\n
Additionally, emerging intellectual property infringement disputes on COVID-19 technologies\u00a0threatens to block collaborative research and development and manufacturing of COVID-19 medical\u00a0products.<\/p>\n
These restrictive business strategies have directly translated into exorbitant pricing and profiteering. With entire health systems already overwhelmed by COVID-19 and with governments facing a looming\u00a0economic crisis, the health budgets of many countries simply cannot sustain highly priced COVID-19\u00a0medical products. These realities will also hinder production by any competent manufacturer and\u00a0impede the full freedom to collaborate, in developing, producing, importing and exporting the needed\u00a0medical products.<\/p>\n
While the TRIPS Agreement contains flexibilities that can promote access, many WTO Members may\u00a0face challenges in using them promptly and effectively. For instance, compulsory license offers a\u00a0\u201cproduct by product\u201d, and \u201ccountry by country\u201d approach with variations in national laws, whereas the\u00a0pandemic requires collective global action to tackle IP barriers and facilitate technology transfer. Where\u00a0the IP barrier is beyond patents, national laws may not provide for sufficient flexibilities. Further,\u00a0Article 31bis, a mechanism to supply countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity, does not\u00a0provide an expedited solution and many countries have also opted out of using the mechanism.<\/p>\n
Unless concrete steps are taken at the global level to address intellectual property and technology\u00a0barriers, the abovementioned failures and shortcomings will replay as new medicines, vaccines and\u00a0other medical products are rolled out. Access will have to be rationed, with devastating effects for public\u00a0health and global economic recovery.<\/p>\n
In a global pandemic where every country is affected, we need a global solution.\u00a0Adoption of a\u00a0Waiver at the WTO level will suspend implementation, application and enforcement of the relevant\u00a0provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to prevention, containment, and treatment of COVID19. It enables an expedited, open and automatic global solution to allow uninterrupted collaboration in\u00a0development, production and supply, and to collectively address the global challenge facing all\u00a0countries. It\u2019s time for governments to take collective responsibility and put people\u2019s lives before\u00a0corporate monopolies.<\/p>\n
Therefore, we strongly request you to unequivocally support the adoption of the proposed Waiver\u00a0at the upcoming TRIPS Council meeting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\r\n\tDownload<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","publication_topics":[145],"publication_language":[184,185],"class_list":["post-19046","blog22","type-blog22","status-publish","hentry","publication_topics-access-to-medicines","publication_language-english","publication_language-french"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog22\/19046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog22"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publication_topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_topics?post=19046"},{"taxonomy":"publication_language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hivlegalnetwork.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_language?post=19046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}