WTO members will assess on Wednesday signs of progress in talks on a proposal by South Africa and India to waive patent rights on Covid-19 vaccines in order to boost supply to developing countries
By Philip Blenkinsop
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - World Trade Organization members will assess on Wednesday signs of progress in talks on a proposal by South Africa and India to waive patent rights on COVID-19 vaccines in order to boost supply to developing countries.
They want to ease the rules of the WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement. WTO decisions are based on consensus, so all 164 members need to agree.
Ten meetings in seven months have failed to produce a breakthrough, with 60 proposal sponsors from emerging economies, backed by a chorus of campaign groups, Nobel laureates, and former world leaders pitted against richer developed countries, such as Switzerland, the United States, and in the European Union, where many pharmaceutical companies are based.
WHERE ARE THE TALKS NOW? After a 10th round of talks on April 30, the waiver proposal's backers said they would revise their text from October in time for the next TRIPS council meeting in the second half of May before a further discussion on June 8-9.
The new text could be more limited than the current proposal.
Norway's ambassador Dagfinn Sorli, the council chair who will brief Wednesday's WTO General Council, expressed "careful optimism".
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus talked on Monday of "encouraging progress", but said the process needed to be completed as soon as possible. The WHO said in April that of 700 million vaccines globally administered, only 0.2% had been in low-income countries.
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