WTO deadlock on plan to free vaccines from IP protection

GENEVA: The World Trade Organization failed to agree Thursday on a proposal to exempt Covid-19 vaccines from intellectual property rights - an idea staunchly opposed by pharmaceutical giants. The plan aims to facilitate greater knowledge-sharing and the rapid scale-up of production sites for urgent Covid-19 medical goods, including vaccines.

The notion was brought forward by India and South Africa, countries which want to boost the global production of vaccine doses to combat the coronavirus pandemic. It is supported by around 100 countries, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and by the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, "WTO members failed to reach a consensus on the proposal," a Geneva trade official said.

"Members agreed to keep this item in the agenda of future... meetings to allow for further consideration of the waiver request.

"An oral status report will be presented at the next General Council meeting on December 16-17 indicating the need for further discussions on this issue."

The General Council is the organisation's supreme decision-making body. WTO member states take decisions by consensus, meaning an agreement was unlikely, given the opposition in the room.

The trade official said members offered no indication of change in their well-known positions or of a likely consensus in the future.

The plan seeks a waiver from certain rules in the WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). It would grant an IP exemption until a majority of the world's population has been immunised against Covid-19.