The President of the United States Joe Biden Supports the World Health Organization’s proposal to abolish intellectual property in vaccines for Covid-19, as he was under pressure from Democrats and more than 100 countries.
Biden, who was in favor of removing the patents during his election campaign, said he supported the proposal after a speech to the White House.
“Yes, I will talk about it later today,” he told reporters when asked about it.
US Trade Representative Kathryn Tai issued a statement shortly after Biden’s statement, saying the US government supported the move, which would temporarily lift some copyrights to help countries deal with the pandemic. “This is a global health crisis and the exceptional circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for emergency measures,” he said.
“The government strongly believes in the protection of intellectual property, but in order to end the pandemic, it supports the lifting of this protection for Covid-19 vaccines,” he added.
Tai added that the United States would participate in the WTO negotiations to ensure that the lifting would take place, but warned that such talks could take time. The decisions of the WHO must be approved unanimously by all its members.
The United States and some other countries had previously blocked WTO negotiations when India and South Africa filed a patent waiver to help poor countries make vaccines for Covid-19 using the intellectual property of pharmaceutical companies.
“A monumental moment,” says the WHO
The head of the World Health Organization called the decision of US President Joe Biden to support the removal of the intellectual property for the vaccines “a monumental moment in the fight against Covid-19”.
In a Twitter post, Tandem Antanom Gebregesus wrote that the commitment of US President and US Trade Representative Kathryn Thai to support the removal of patents is a “powerful example” of US leadership in tackling global health.
“The White House’s support for this temporary lifting of vaccine patents reflects the wisdom and ethical leadership of the United States” for equal access to vaccines and an end to the pandemic, the WHO secretary general added.
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