World cannot be fixated on IP rights when it comes to vaccines
It will ensure speedy delivery of Covid-19 vaccines to all
Aproposal by India, South Africa and eight others calls on World Trade Organisation (WTO) to exempt member countries from enforcing some patents and other Intellectual Property (IP) rights under Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for a limited period.
It is to ensure that IP rights do not restrict the rapid scaling-up of manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. While a few member-countries have raised concerns about the proposal, a large proportion supports the proposal. It has also received the backing of various multilateral agencies... and the global civil society.
Unprecedented times call for unorthodox measures. The situation appears to be grimmer than predicted: we have already lost 7 per cent of economic output from the baseline scenario projected in 2019. It translates to a loss of more than $6 trillion of global GDP.
Here’s the math
Even a 1 per cent improvement in global GDP from the baseline scenario will add more than $800 billion in global output, offsetting the loss certainly of a much lower order to a sector of economy on account of the waiver. Merely a signal to ensure timely and affordable access to vaccines and treatments will work as a big confidence booster for demand revival in the economy.
With the emergence of successful vaccines, there appears to be some hope on the horizon. But how will these be made accessible and affordable to global population? As things stand, even the most optimistic scenarios today cannot assure access to vaccines and therapeutics for the majority of the population, in rich as well as poor countries, by the end of 2021.
The existing flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement are not adequate, as these were not designed keeping pandemics in mind. Compulsory licenses are issued on a country by country, case by case and product by product basis, where every jurisdiction with an IP regime would have to issue separate compulsory licenses, practically making collaboration among countries extremely onerous.
During the initial few months of the pandemic, we have seen that shelves were emptied by those who had access to masks, PPEs, sanitisers, gloves and other essential Covid-19 items even without their immediate need. The same should not happen to vaccines. Eventually, the world was able to ramp up manufacturing of Covid-19 essentials as there were no IP barriers hindering that.
This is the way
The TRIPS waiver proposal is a targeted and proportionate response to the exceptional public health emergency that the world faces today and is well-within the provisions of Article IX of the Marrakesh Agreement that established the WTO. It can help in ensuring that human lives are not lost for want of a timely and affordable access to vaccines.