COVID-19 vaccines: Why we need global solidarity

As the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Council meets today, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is again calling on those opposed to the landmark TRIPS waiver to support the temporary removal of intellectual property (IP) rights on COVID-19 medical tools.

To end the pandemic, we need to make effective vaccines, treatments and therapeutics widely available through increased manufacture and distribution. However, due to the sustained blocking efforts of the UK, Germany, and other EU nations, the WTO still has not passed the TRIPS waiver, which would temporarily remove the intellectual property rights preventing the manufacture of these treatments by countries who need them most. 

To make matters worse, the critical WTO meeting to approve the TRIPS waiver was postponed this week because of the Omicron variant emergence and against the backdrop of Europe battling a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections. While further analysis is required to understand the severity of the new variant and the efficacy of our current national vaccination strategies, it is clear that we have not been doing everything in our power to prevent the emergence and rapid spread of further mutations of COVID-19.

“Recent emergence of another new, more transmissible variant is a telling example of how this virus continues to mutate particularly in the absence of equitable access to the right COVID-19 medical tools to deal with it,” says Candice Sehoma, South Africa Advocacy Officer with MSF’s Access Campaign. 

“With millions of lives at stake, the world can’t afford to waste any more time. We call on countries opposing and diluting this waiver to today halt the stalling tactics and take urgent measures to adopt a comprehensive waiver, which is needed now more than ever.” 

In the 14 months since India and South Africa first proposed the landmark TRIPS Waiver proposal to increase people’s access to COVID-19 medical tools, over 4 million people have lost their lives to COVID-19—5 million lives have been lost since the start of the pandemic. In response, over 100 states have come together to support the TRIPS Waiver, showing that more than half the world’s governments consider the adoption and implementation of this proposal to be an effective tool against COVID-19. 

However, due to opposition from a group of high-income countries that are currently burying this global solidarity, negotiations on the TRIPS Waiver continue to move at a glacial pace. Several low-income countries continue to struggle to lift their vaccination rates above single digits, all while pharmaceutical companies post enormous profits.

“Every day, we are witnessing a desperate need for COVID-19 medical tools in the places we work,” says Reveka Papadopoulou, President of MSF’s Operational Centre in Geneva. “Given the severely limited access to the COVID-19 drugs, diagnostics and vaccines needed to save lives, it’s truly demoralizing that some governments are opposing an initiative like the TRIPS Waiver which could have such a positive impact on how low- and middle-income countries are able to tackle this pandemic.”

After almost two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world cannot afford to wait any longer. Pharmaceutical countries must share their technology now, and powerful nations like Australia, the US, and the EU must facilitate this exchange. The TRIPS waiver is one tool—a critical one—that will help end the pandemic for everyone.