WTO meets to discuss India and South Africa’s IPR proposal on Covid-19 drugs
India and South Africa have filed a proposal to the World Trade Organisation to temporarily suspend the Intellectual Property Rights on all the Covid-19 related technologies, as it could come in the way to access medicines, vaccines and devices which is being developed to tackle the Covid-19 virus.
The issue was taken up at the council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) today. The meeting concluded recently and the council was not able to reach a consensus about the issue and have set it up for informal consultation for resolution by the year-end. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has supported the proposal irrespective of the fact that in the meeting held by WTO and TRIPS to consensus was reached.
Who has mentioned earlier that the waiver would help to make treatment and test affordable and available? Even if the discussions and negotiations are carried forward to the first half of next year it could help as the patent applications are still in the process of getting published.
