At the close of protracted decisions in Geneva on Friday, India failed to convince other World Trade Organisation (WTO) members to waive intellectual property rights governing the manufacture and export of COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. Doing so would have eased production and export from India to other countries that lacked such capacity.
The final text of the agreement only eases access to the making and export of COVID-19 vaccines and notes that member-countries would within six months decide on whether similar concessions can be extended to diagnostics and therapeutics.
“The inability to agree to a real pandemic intellectual property waiver at WTO is a devastating global failure for people the world over,” said Christos Christou, International President of the Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), “We are disappointed with the inadequate outcome on waiving intellectual property for COVID-19 medical tools that resulted from more than 20 months of deliberations. “
