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European leaders expressed growing skepticism on Friday that proposals to protect patents on COVID-19 vaccines would solve the problem of the U.S. receiving shots in the arms of people in poorer countries, with some demanding more exports of doses already produced. .
While activists and humanitarian groups are calling for the Biden administration’s decision to be welcomed and others to be followed, they are spreading a message that EU leaders will extend the benefits of a temporary waiver of intellectual property protection.
Instead, they have been taken by the US, mainly for not sharing more vaccines in the rest of the world.
“You can give intellectual property to labs that don’t know how to produce. They will not produce tomorrow, ”French President Emmanuel Macron said at a Portuguese summit, although he also said he would accept the cancellation of protections.
EU officials stress that the rules for rewriting the World Trade Organization could take months or even a year, and said they have found few examples, if any, that intellectual property issues maintain the spread of vaccines.
Proponents of the patent waiver have argued that more factories around the world would be able to make the shot, increasing supply, especially in the poorest countries. The decision is ultimately up to the 164-member WTO, and if a country votes against the waiver, the idea will fail.
Macron said the key issues are really donations and exports, also arguing the pharmaceutical industry, and said the U.S. should do more in that regard.
The U.S. does not prohibit the export of vaccines or the export of vaccine ingredients.
But the federal government controls hundreds of millions of doses manufactured in the country under its contracts with pharmacists, and is the first of some of the raw materials produced by U.S. suppliers.
The United States has sent about four million doses to Canada and Mexico from the vaccine depot from AstraZeneca, which has not yet applied for a permit in the United States, and plans to start exporting 60 million doses in the coming months.
Last week, some of the raw materials used by the US for AstraZeneca were also diverted to India, as part of the appeals suffered by the harsh countries.
Macron, however, has authorized the export of almost half of the doses produced in the EU – or around 200 million.
“We are the most generous in the world of developed nations,” he said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday that the U.S. “will work with international partners to increase supply to pharmaceutical companies to get the most supply possible to the community around the world.”
The U.S. government controls hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses manufactured in the country under contracts with pharmacists and is the first of some of the raw materials produced by U.S. suppliers. [File: Bloomberg]
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala reiterated some of the sentiments expressed by European leaders at a virtual conference on Friday, warning that lifting patent protections could help widen fair access to vaccines, but would not be the “most critical problem” in expanding vaccine production. .
Other key steps include reducing exports of vaccines and the ingredients needed to make them, sharing the knowledge behind the shots, training manufacturing staff, and increasing manufacturing capacity worldwide.
Meanwhile, Germany, a strong research force with a strong biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector, appeared to oppose the waiver of protections and also demanded more exports.
“The main issue is not the issue of patents. The main issue is the issue of production capacity, ”said German Health Minister Jens Spahn, who noted that producing vaccines like the one developed by the German company BioNTech and manufactured with Pfizer is very complicated.
Instead, he stressed that vaccine campaigns are doing well when more developed countries need to export more shots.
“We’re going to export a lot more,” he said. “I am only welcome if the United States changes its policy and makes vaccine doses available to other countries.”
Fatima Hassan, a human rights lawyer and director of the South African Health Justice Initiative, said she was pleased with the Biden administration’s announcement, but said it was “eight months late”.
“We can’t basically wait months for the waiver to be final,” he said.
Hassan said countries with “over-mandated” vaccines “ironically refuse and block the ability of low-income people in the world to get vaccinated.”
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