14 Mar 2021

The United States lead the world in the development of vaccines for Novel Coronavirus, likely to make it into the arms of every American by May of 2021. During these unprecedented times, where does this leave our brothers and sisters in neighboring underdeveloped countries and developing nations?  The Washington Post investigates The World Trade Organization’s impasse on proposing to waive “countries’ obligation to enforce patents on covid-19 technologies, including vaccines, during the pandemic.”

 (TWP, 2021).

Georgetown University’s Head of National and Global Health Law, Madhavi Sunder and Matthew Kavanagh, director of global health policy and politics give expertise on the effects of lower income countries delaying distribution of vaccines until possibly 2024. From their viewpoint, accessibility to generic manufacturing could improve protection if the legalities behind patent protection for international countries were to put aside politics for the sake of public health.  

Sunder explains, …”what they [WTO] must not do is block producers in Africa, Asia and Latin America from making lifesaving vaccines and exporting them to their neighbors.”

The development of vaccinations for low income countries and communities has a history of firewall type mechanisms to block certain access to shared data and information. The first reason is funding. Kavanagh’s perspective evangelizes the need to understand the ethical standards behind shared practices for shared technology with low and middle income countries. The Doha Declaration, fundamentally developed during The Aids Epidemic in Africa, causes shift in present hope for progressive action and not repeated history: 

“Two decades ago, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, the WTO’s Doha Declaration affirmed intellectual property rules“should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public health.” (Kavanagh, 2021.)

 Is a new variant posing as this “Invisible Threat” the necessary reason to implement patent waivers? What does this look like for the future of generic manufacturing? Our experts explain that with waived patents, increased manufacturer capacity through shared data technology will increase production, export, and distribution to populations. The second reason behind this international blockade argues the complexity in the making of the vaccine between generic versus actual manufacturing.  Kavanagh and Sunder explain that the covid-19 pandemic necessitates both a temporary intellectual property waiver from the WTO and a bold effort to share know-how — not in 2024, but now. 

Between the World Health Organization’s implicit bias in the leverage behind opening up vaccines to EVERYONE and the World Trade Organization’s complexities in sharing the machinery, the dependency on making money off people requires a deeper level of understanding about each manufacturer collecting ‘royalties’ from each distribution of a vaccine. We are living in a time where the lack in revealing concealed information to those who need it most may conclude that those that are left out must wait and in the meantime fend for themselves. What are your thoughts and how do you foresee the social and economic impact on our global Sickle Cell brothers and sisters. Leave a comment below!

Sunder, M., Kavanagh, M. March 2021.  Don’t let intellectual property rights get in the way of global vaccination. The Washington Post.