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.
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