The new TRIPS waiver proposal won't end deadly COVID monopolies
It is hard to believe that, in a pandemic where 18 million people globally have died amidst global vaccine apartheid, it has taken two years for rich country governments to grudgingly accept what campaigners and developing country governments have been repeatedly saying: Covid monopolies are a deadly barrier to saving lives and ending this pandemic.
But the leaked text on a suspension of the monopoly protections on COVID technology is wholly inadequate. India and South Africa - backed by over 100 countries - have been demanding a broad waiver of monopoly protections to accelerate a scale up in COVID supplies that can address the fact that around 90% of people in low income countries are still waiting for their first vaccine dose. But this text falls far short of what is needed. Criticisms of the text leaked yesterday include:
It is limited to vaccines, meaning lifesaving COVID treatments and diagnostics are inexplicably excluded
The proposed solution in the leaked text does not include all World Trade Organisation members
It is time limited, so manufacturers who scale up to supply vaccines could be forced to shut up shop again within a few years
It only covers patents - even though bringing on new suppliers quickly and safely will require other monopoly protections like trade secrets to be overcome
It imposes onerous requirements on the countries that want to make use of it - like publishing all patents that are being utilised - even though companies, who file for hundreds of overlapping patents, can keep these secret for 18 months
It is still unclear what position the UK will take on even this bad deal. Boris Johnson has been one of the isolated rich country leaders consistently putting the profits of drug companies ahead of a life-saving, pandemic-ending waiver.
It is good that it has now been tacitly accepted that these monopolies are a deadly licence for pandemic profiteering. But unless this new text is radically revised and expanded, it will do little to help those still waiting for vaccines, and nothing to help the Covid patients who desperately need access to treatments. Boris Johnson must urgently shift the government’s position - now that the entire world agrees that COVID monopolies are a problem, we must immediately take truly effective action to bring them to a rapid end.
Just Treatment supporter Sakina Datoo said:
“We lost our father to COVID in Tanzania last year. He didn’t have access to the vaccine. I wish he did, because this could have given him a chance to fight death. For him, this deal is too little too late. So many families have lost loved ones while the UK government stood in the way of a deal that could get Covid vaccines and treatments to those who need them. Even after all this time, the fact that this leaked text accepts that monopolies are an issue but fails to meaningfully tackle them is a further insult to those who have died without access as well as to the lives that will be lost in the future. This is a political failure that reminds us clearly that for drug companies, as well as our politicians, profits matter more than lives - especially if those lives are of black and brown people globally.”
Just Treatment patient leader Izzie Jani-Friend said:
“As a cystic fibrosis patient I was one of the first to be offered a vaccine. I’ve been at the front of the queue while my family in India have been forced to wait, in fear for their lives and those of their friends and loved ones. How can this be fair? The UK and EU have continued to block proposals that could have massively ramped up the production of treatments and vaccines, instead standing on the side of big pharma’s monopolies and choosing to create a vaccine apartheid. Now, after all this time, the proposal on the table is just going to see us maintaining the status quo - with a vaccine, testing and treatment apartheid while big pharma continue to rake in record breaking profits.”