The countries of the South want the patent to be withdrawn from COVID-19 drugs, not the rich of the North.
- Important debate in the World Trade Organisation: The countries of the South of the Earth have called for the patent to be suspended for COVID-19 related medicines to deal with the pandemic. India and South Africa have made the petition, but the rich countries of the North refuse to accept it because patents are fundamental to the economic superiority of their multinationals.
India and South Africa have filed a petition at the WTO for this organization to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights, so that vaccines and other new technologies for COVID-19 are also available to poor countries, according to The Lancet. On the contrary, many countries with a strong pharmaceutical industry and high incomes on the average of the inhabitants of the planet are strongly opposed to the measure, arguing that those rights have not been eliminated just when more innovations are needed.
If the WTO does not halt its path to patents, rich countries will be able to use the latest technologies to deal with COVID-19 as it enters the market, while poor nations will have to continue to depend on the attacks of the pandemic. The proposal by India and South Africa to push forward the proposal that intellectual property rights and patents are hampering access to medicines and technologies for COVID-19. A temporary ban, they say, would allow, in addition to patent holders, other countries and companies to be incorporated into the manufacture of these products before, so that the production and distribution of these products would go to the hands of a few patentees.
"This exceptional proposal aims to open up a space for greater cooperation in the market, both in the transfer of technology and in the incorporation of new producers, which would allow us to reach the right scales of new drugs in a shorter time," said Mustaqeem De gama, South Africa's WTO representative.
Dozens of countries with weak economies or holders officially support the proposal of South Africa and India. But the wealthiest countries disagree. United Kingdom, United States, European Union, Canada... In his view, patents and intellectual rights are necessary to promote the new inventions that have been generated in vaccines, diagnoses and treatments. To reject the demand of the poor, they offer as an alternative the COVAX Pact, which allows voluntary transfer of licences and technologies.
The Government of South Africa has said that this last alternative, that of licensing donations by multinationals and rich countries, falls short. In the case of COVID-19, owners have responded that not when they have requested the release of monoclonal antibody therapies and are able to cope with certain symptoms. And as for the campaigns of the pharmaceutical industry involved, South Africa recalls how Pfizer, which has launched the first coronavirus vaccine, has acted in other serious epidemics. Thus, for example, they continue to litigate the pneumococcal vaccine created by Médecins Sans Frontières and this Pfizer, because the multinational has repeatedly blocked the development of similar alternative vaccines in the World Trade Organization, an issue that brought the SK Bioscience of South Korea to court. South Africa has argued that a similar situation will be created with COVID-19 vaccines if no action is taken to address intellectual property barriers.
