Global Covid-19 vaccine inequity bane of IP rights

Covid-19 has been a real disruption the world over.

The capacities of many healthcare systems, especially in developing countries, were stretched by the pandemic to the tipping point.

Luckily, upon considerable scientific efforts, some effective vaccines against the virus have finally been produced.

Whereas this restored hope, many countries, especially from the developing world, faced a herculean task in accessing the vaccines for its people, thanks to, among other contributory factors, the restrictive Intellectual Property (IP) regime.

IP law restrictions arise because vaccine patents, which are a form of IP rights, prevent others from entering the market in any form, including production, supply and pricing of the vaccines.

Ordinarily, the owner of a medical product patent is granted exclusive proprietary rights for almost 20 years. The proponents of exclusivity argue that the same allows innovators time-limited rights to recoup the benefits of their intellectual input.

With the pandemic, the urgency by developed countries in securing vaccines exposed global inequalities. It is on record that the developed countries had a stock surplus of the vaccines that could be shared and still enough left over to vaccinate 80 percent of their population older than 12 years.

The self-defeating situation was aptly described by the WHO director Tedros Ghebreyesus as not only a moral failure but an economic and human rights catastrophe.

Clearly, the pandemic revived the old debate on the delicate balance between public health and intellectual property rights.

The HIV/Aids crisis of the 1990s remains vivid: people dying in developing countries because of inaccessibility of the patented life-saving anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs).

Although the right to health has been inscribed in a number of global treaties, actualisation of the aspirations remains distant as witnessed in the pandemic.

The opposition by developed countries on the request by developing countries led by South Africa and India to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Council for a temporary waiver for development, production and supply of Covid-19 medical products, underscores the underlying inequalities.

Whereas it is mandatory for all World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries recognise product patents, there are exemptions outlined in TRIPS.

Examples of the TRIPS flexibilities include compulsory licensing, voluntary licensing, data protection, and parallel imports. The voluntary licensing arrangement between AstraZeneca and Serum Institute of India is a good example.

As the world continues fighting the pandemic, vaccination is key.

While the short-term solution to ensuring more equitable vaccines access is reliant on the distribution of the global stockpile to places in need, the long-term solution should focus on local capacity strengthening.

During the State of the Nation Address, the President outlined some ongoing efforts to establish a venture that would produce Covid-19 vaccines targeted to start by Easter 2022.