Activists urge Biden to champion temporary COVID-19 IP waiver
Medical and human rights groups have called on US President Joe Biden to step up his personal engagement and help put in place a temporary waiver of IP rights for COVID-19 vaccines.
The letter—sent by 15 organisations, including Médecins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, and Amnesty International and released on Friday 19 November—comes less than two weeks before the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference begins on 30 November.
“A meaningful WTO waiver that can facilitate the necessary scale-up in production will only be agreed if the Biden administration applies maximum diplomatic and political pressure to make it happen. Doing so will require an intensified effort now,” it said.
In May this year, Biden reversed the US’ stance and voiced his support for a waiver. Then, last month, the White House called on WTO members to support the waiver.
However, according to the letter, six months after Biden’s announcement, there had been no progress on enacting the waiver.
“We have been very disappointed that the Biden administration has since been unwilling to take further leadership to ensure a waiver text is successfully concluded and adopted, even as 100-plus WTO member countries support a waiver,” it said.
The letter added: “US passivity has empowered close US allies—the European Union, on behalf of Germany, plus Switzerland and the UK—to block progress even as millions die or become seriously ill waiting for effective vaccines and treatments.”
The activists stated that more than a year after an emergency WTO waiver was first proposed, fewer than 7% of people in low-income nations have received their first shot.
The alleged lack of action on the COVID-19 pandemic waiver was likened to the inaction on the AIDS waiver.
“Has the world learned nothing from the millions of people who died from AIDS in the developing world because rich countries stalled a WTO waiver for years and people could not get the anti-retroviral medications that made HIV a manageable disease in rich countries?” said the letter.
It added that 22 years ago, developing countries (also led by South Africa, as the COVID-19 waiver has been) demanded a TRIPS waiver and no waiver was agreed.
“It was two more years and millions of preventable deaths before any WTO action,” said the letter, with the activists adding that, as was the case then, they would continue to “fight relentlessly” for a waiver of the WTO’s IP rules.
Finally, they urged Biden to personally engage on the delivery of a temporary waiver, adding that his leadership in “securing a meaningful WTO waiver and helping to end the COVID-19 pandemic and the misery it is causing all of humanity is a moral necessity”.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox.
