The US threw its weight behind a waiver on patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines as India yesterday posted record deaths.
Rich nations have faced accusations of hoarding shots, while poor countries struggle to get inoculation programs off the ground, with the virus surging across the developing world in contrast with the easing of restrictions in Europe and the US.
Under intense pressure to ease protections for vaccine manufacturers, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) on Wednesday said that the country “supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” she said in a statement.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the “historic” move and said that it marked “a monumental moment in the fight against COVID-19.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — who has previously voiced reluctance to waive patents — yesterday said that the bloc was ready to discuss the US proposal to do so.
Photo: AP
EU governments lined up to weigh in, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying that he was “absolutely in favor” of a global waiver, while Germany said that it was open to discussing the proposal.
However, the move is opposed by a consortium of big pharmaceutical companies, which described the decision as “disappointing” and said that it could hamper innovation.
Shares in Asia-listed vaccine makers — including Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group (上海復星醫藥集團) and CanSino Biologics (康希諾生物) — tumbled yesterday after the US announcement.
The move “probably isn’t great news for the vaccine manufacturers who will now face generic copies of their vaccine”, said Olivier d’Assier, head of applied research at Qontigo GmbH.
India has been leading the fight to allow more drugmakers to manufacture the vaccines, as it faces a surge that has seen patients die in streets outside hospitals due to bed and medical oxygen shortages.
The country yesterday reported almost 4,000 COVID-19 deaths and more than 412,000 infections — both new records — dashing hopes that the catastrophic recent surge might have been easing following several days of falling case numbers.
A top Indian official on Wednesday said that the worst could still be to come, describing a third wave as “inevitable given the high levels of circulating virus” and saying that the country badly needs more oxygen from other countries.
“We should prepare for new waves,” said K. Vijay Raghavan, the Indian government’s principal scientific adviser.
Consignments of oxygen and equipment have been arriving from the US, France, Britain, Russia and other countries, but another official said that India would need even more to fight the surge until numbers stabilize.
“If we could get more oxygen more lives would be saved,” the top government official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
RSS