WB: Won’t back jab patent waiver
WASHINGTON/BEIJING: World Bank president David Malpass said on Tuesday that the bank does not support waiving intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, out of concern that it would hamper innovation in the pharma sector.
Malpass, asked during a media call about new World Bank economic forecasts whether he supports WTO negotiations for a vaccine waiver, said, “We don’t support that, for the reason that it would run the risk of reducing the innovation and the R&D in that sector.”
Meanwhile in China, a scientific paper has found that over 47,000 live wild animals were sold from wet markets in Wuhan between 2017 and 2019 before the first cases of Covid-19 were officially reported from the city.
Researched by international scientists including from China, the paper said that 47,381 animals from 38 species were sold in 17 markets in Wuhan between May 2017 and November 2019, including 31 protected species. The animals were kept in cages with poor hygiene.
Separately, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken cast doubt on the methodology of a report on the origin of Covid-19 cited by The Wall Street Journal that concluded the hypothesis of a virus leak from a Chinese lab was plausible. “I saw the report. I think it’s on a number of levels incorrect,” Blinken told a Senate committee hearing. He said the report originated after the Trump administration asked a contractor to look into the origin of the virus.