South Africa and US agree on adoption of the COVID vaccine IP waiver

SOUTH AFRICA – South Africa together with the United States, European Union and India have agreed on key elements of a long-sought intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines.

The agreement proposes the authorized use of patented subject matter required for the production and supply of COVID-19 vaccines without the consent of the right holder to the extent necessary to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

IP rights will also be waived for ingredients and processes necessary for COVID-19 vaccine manufacture in a move aimed at granting critical know-how to many countries lacking expertise especially for advanced mRNA-type vaccines.

However, the text contains a number of limitations like the waiver is only available to WTO member countries that exported less than 10% of global exports of COVID-19 vaccine doses in 2021.

The tentative agreement also does not include COVID-19 treatments or tests and the limitations will likely exclude China from any waiver.

The deal that outlines whether the length of any patent waivers would be three years or five years still needs to be finalized.

Despite the four World Trade Organization (WTO) members reaching a consensus, the proposed deal still needs formal approvals from WTO’s 164 member countries in order to be adopted.

The deal would only apply to patents for COVID-19 vaccines which would be much more limited in scope than a broad proposed WTO waiver that had won backing from the United States.

Previously, India and South Africa had first proposed the WTO vaccine IP waiver in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic exploded.

The tentative deal comes after months of negotiations over how to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine production in developing countries, where vaccination rates have lagged far behind wealthy countries.

It also faces objections from some countries with large pharmaceuticals sectors including Switzerland and Britain which has stalled progress in negotiations among the larger group.

The opposing pharmaceutical groups claim that efforts to waive intellectual property commitments are unnecessary and harm efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic.

The groups contest that voluntary technology transfer and partnerships have helped vaccine makers to target production of 20 billion doses in 2022 which is more than enough for the world.

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