US backs vaccine patent waiver as India sees record Covid deaths

United States will participate in the negotiations within the World Trade Organization for the same

India persuaded the United States to reverse its stand and extend support to a proposal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for waiving the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection on Covid-19 vaccines so as to ensure “equitable, affordable and timely access” for all.

The waiver may clear the way for pharmaceutical companies in India, South Africa and other low and middle-income countries to make cheaper versions of Covid-19 vaccines, scale up production and inoculate people at a faster rate.

The extent of the benefit, however, will depend much on the scope of the waiver and it will take time for the complex negotiations at the WTO to conclude.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the Joe Biden administration's support to the proposal for temporarily waiving IPR protections. The reversal of the US stand prompted other naysayers like France and Germany to come around and indicate they would also review positions on the issue. The European Union also said it was ready to discuss any proposal to address the crisis in an effective manner.

New Delhi welcomed the US statement. “We are hopeful that with a consensus-based approach, the waiver can be approved quickly at the WTO,” the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry stated in identical statements. “The waiver is an important step for enabling rapid scaling up of manufacture and timely availability of affordable Covid-19 vaccines and essential medical products.”

The extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic call for extraordinary measures, Tai said in a statement issued early Thursday. She said the Biden administration believed strongly in intellectual property protections, but supported the waiver for vaccines in order to help end the pandemic.

The proposal was first mooted by India and South Africa at the WTO last year. It received the support of more than 120 nations. But the erstwhile Donald Trump administration opposed it. So did the EU and several other western nations.

After Biden and his Indian-American Vice President Kamala Harris took office on January 20, New Delhi has been lobbying hard to secure support of the new administration. Tai and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal discussed the issue on March 25. Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi also discussed it over phone on April 26. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took it up with US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, when they met in London earlier this week.

Taranjit Singh Sandhu, New Delhi’s envoy to Washington DC, had reached out to the US lawmakers. As many as 10 Senators of the Democratic Party, had urged the US President last month to support the proposal mooted for the temporary IPR protection waiver on Covid-19 vaccines and drugs. Biden also received a letter from twelve lawmakers of the Republican Party, opposing any move to support the proposal mooted by India and South Africa. The US pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer Inc, Moderna Inc, and Novavax Inc also opposed the proposal.

The proposal by India and South Africa seeks a temporary waiver to all the WTO members so that they do not have to implement, apply or enforce certain obligations related to Covid-19 products and technologies under Section 1 (copyrights and related rights), 4 (industrial design), 5 (patents) and 7 (protection of undisclosed information) of Part II of the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) Agreement – the global treaty that governs intellectual property rights. The proponents of the temporary waiver argued that if the developing and poor nations did not get access to the Covid-19 vaccines, the pandemic would continue to wreak havoc in one part of the world, despite being brought under control in another.

“To slow down the virus' ability to infect new people and mutate further, we need true global vaccination drive in a time-bound manner, and the limited waiver is an effective and pragmatic way to help in achieving it,” Brajendra Navnit, New Delhi’s envoy to the WTO, said. “An outcome on this will not only help in saving valuable human lives but will also give a comforting signal to boost the consumer confidence and will accelerate the recovery of global trade and world GDP,” he added while speaking at the WTO earlier this week.