India tears into those opposing patent waiver on COVID vaccine at WTO

Buoyed by Pope Francis’ statements of equitable access to safe and effective vaccines being fundamental to saving lives and livelihoods, India’s Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday tore into countries and big pharmaceutical companies opposing IPR waiver on COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and equipment. 

Pope Francis, in a Twitter post tagging the World Trade Organisation (WTO), had said that Africa must not be left behind and that no one is safe until everyone is safe. The papal suggestion backed a proposal for easing of patent rules to help developing nations and less developed countries or LDCs in acquiring vaccines, drugs and equipment. 

Goyal in a hard hitting statement said, “Some pharmaceutical companies for profit and some countries to ensure profits for these companies are taking away the rights of the poor to get vaccinated. They have set profits as a priority. ” 

He added that the pandemic apart from building a high death toll and misery have thrown economies in disarray. “The stand taken by many nations is shocking as they refuse to help the poor. Greed is taking the world back in time,” he said. 

Goyal explained that some developed nations have already administered 2-3 doses to their entire population while people in many poor countries struggle to get their first.

Goyal was indirectly referring to the fact that in the third year of this pandemic, only 14 per cent of people in low-income countries have been vaccinated with one dose, while in November last year, the People’s Vaccine Alliance reported that Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna, the companies behind two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines, were together making $65,000 every minute. In another distressing fact, pharma giants like Pfizer and BioNTech had delivered less than 1 per cent of their total vaccine supplies to low-income countries, while Moderna had delivered barely 0.2 per cent.

In an attempt to garner support for the India-South Africa proposal, Goyal today met South African minister Abraham Patel and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

Apart from the need to expand manufacturing and administering of COVID-19 vaccines, he also discussed India’s stand on food security, fishing subsidy and WTO reforms etc. 

Interestingly, while the WTO meet is at its Geneva headquarter, host Switzerland is one of the nations opposing the proposal.   

In November 2020 India and South Africa had submitted a TRIPS waiver request in which they proposed that the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) should be (largely) suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Countries like Switzerland had argued that in addition to patent rights, this would affect other intellectual property rights such as designs, trade secrets and copyright and everything related to the pandemic, including not only vaccines and medicines but also medicinal products such as tests and ventilators.

The Swiss claim that suspending the established international legal framework would mean that WTO rules, which have been in force for over 25 years and accepted by 164 states, would no longer apply.

Countries like India believe that the pharmaceutical giants and their parent countries are out to defeat the spirit of the proposal and that is why there is opposition to the draft, up for discussion at the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference in Geneva. 

The draft text on the WTO response to the pandemic sets out a series of trade-related pledges and objectives in order to support increased resilience to COVID-19 and future pandemics. These include general as well as specific provisions relating to trade facilitation, regulatory cooperation, intellectual property, services, food security and aspects of future work.

India, since the arrival of domestic vaccines, has sent out doses to 150 countries.

Also read: WTO meet: India rejects elements of draft on fisheries subsidies, food subsidy declaration