EU ready to discuss vaccine waiver plan
PORTO: The European Union is sceptical about the usefulness of waiving patent rights to Covid-19 vaccines as a way to fight the pandemic, but is ready to discuss a concrete proposal, the chairman of EU leaders Charles Michel said on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters before the second day of an EU summit in the Portuguese city of Porto, Michel said the way to fight the pandemic now was to quickly make more shots and lift export curbs on them in countries like the US and Britain that make vaccines but do not sell them to others.
“In Europe we took the decision to make exports possible and we encourage all partners to facilitate the exports of doses,” Michel said after discussions with leaders of the 27-nation bloc on Friday evening.
India and South Africa called last year for the lifting of patent rights to vaccines as a way of boosting manufacturing and ensuring the world is supplied. Debate around the issue erupted anew on Wednesday when US President Joe Biden supported the idea, provided it was done through the World Trade Organization.
“On intellectual property - we don’t think that in the short term that it is a magic bullet, but we are ready to engage on this topic as soon as a concrete proposal would be put on the table,” Michel said.
Officials said that during Friday’s summit talks, Germany home to Biontech which holds a patent on the highly effective MRNA vaccine together with Pfizer - argued strongly against the idea of waiving patent rights.
Sri Lanka approves Pfizer jab for emergency use
Sri Lanka on Saturday approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use in Sri Lanka, as the island nation battles a third wave of the virus, while suffering a restricted supply of vaccines from neighbouring India.
Dr Sudharshani Fernandopulle, the minister overseeing the fight against the epidemic, said in a statement the government would order 5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Sri Lanka is seeking to secure other vaccines as the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has suspended the delivery of Astrazeneca’s Covishield vaccine due to spiraling coronavirus infections in India.
Britain will be free of Covid by August: Report
The new coronavirus will no longer be circulating in Britain by August, the government’s departing vaccine taskforce chief Clive Dix told the Daily Telegraph on Friday.
“Sometime in August, we will have no circulating virus in the UK”, Dix said, adding that he believed the vaccine booster programme could be pushed back to early 2022.
The government is looking at which Covid-19 vaccines would offer the best booster shot for vulnerable people later this year.
Dix told the Telegraph that he expects everybody in the UK to have been vaccinated at least once by the end of July, by which time “we’ll have probably protected the population from all the variants that are known”.