‘Vaccine rights waiver within reach’

Agencies

GENEVA: An international agreement on waiving intellectual property rights for coronavirus vaccines is within reach ahead of a global trade meeting next week, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday.

In a telephone interview, director-general Ngozi Okonjoiweala also said an agreement could be reached on fishing subsidies in time for the meeting, when 120 trade ministers from around the world gather at the body’s Geneva headquarters.

“If we get one or two deliverables that will be good,” Okonjoiweala told Reuters in a telephone interview. “I think we are within shouting distance of that.”

Days before the meeting starts, none of the agreements in the three major negotiating areas of agriculture, fish subsidies or intellectual property rights for vaccines have been finalised for ministers to rubberstamp, trade sources say.

Instead, Okonjo-iweala described a “hectic” atmosphere in Geneva where negotiators had been working late nights and weekends in order to try to resolve outstanding differences.

Since she was appointed more than a year ago, Okonjo-iweala, a former Nigerian minister and chair of the GAVI vaccine alliance board, has prioritised a long-sought deal on a waiver for intellectual property rights for Covid-19 shots.

Some recent disagreements have centred on the scope of the waiver and China’s objection to some of the agreement’s wording, trade sources say.

Moderna announces +ve results for Omicron shot

US biotech company Moderna on Wednesday announced positive results for a new vaccine that targets both the original Covid strain and Omicron.

This so-called “bivalent” vaccine was tested in a trial of 814 adults, who had all received their first three doses of Moderna’s original Spikevax vaccine.

Those who received the bivalent vaccine had significantly higher levels of neutralising antibodies against Omicron.

On average, these levels were around 75% higher in the group who got the bivalent vaccine as a fourth dose compared to those who got the original vaccine as a fourth dose.

THE WAIVER IDEA, PROPOSED BY INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA IN OCTOBER 2020, IS SUPPORTED BY MOST MEMBERS OF THE GLOBAL TRADE BODY.