Improving access to COVID-19 vaccines: an analysis of TRIPS waiver discourse among WTO members, civil society organizations, and pharmaceutical industry stakeholders. (Special Issue: COVID-19 vaccine equity and human rights.)
Health and Human Rights: An International Journal
; 24(2):159-175, 2022.
Article
in English
| CAB Abstracts | ID: covidwho-2266865
ABSTRACT
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, international access to COVID-19 vaccines and other health technologies has remained highly asymmetric. This inequity has had a particularly deleterious impact on low- and middle-income countries, engaging concerns about the human rights to health and to the equal enjoyment of the benefits of scientific progress enshrined under articles 12 and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In response, the relationship between intellectual property rights and public health has reemerged as a subject of global interest. In October 2020, a wholesale waiver of the copyright, patent, industrial design, and undisclosed information sections of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Agreement) was proposed by India and South Africa as a legal mechanism to increase access to affordable COVID-19 medical products. Here, we identify and evaluate the TRIPS waiver positions of World Trade Organization (WTO) members and other key stakeholders throughout the waiver's 20-month period of negotiation at the WTO. In doing so, we find that most stakeholders declined to explicitly contextualize the TRIPS waiver within the human right to health and that historical stakeholder divisions on the relationship between intellectual property and access to medicines appear largely unchanged since the early 2000s HIV/AIDS crisis. Given the WTO's consensus-based decision-making process, this illuminates key challenges faced by policy makers seeking to leverage the international trading system to improve equitable access to health technologies.
Agencies and Organizations [DD100], Laws and Regulations [DD500], International Trade [EE600], Host Resistance and Immunity [HH600], Prion; Viral; Bacterial and Fungal Pathogens of Humans [VV210], access, consensus, coronavirus disease 2019, decision making, drugs, human diseases, human rights, law, non-governmental organizations, patents, public health, stakeholders, trade, viral diseases, World Tourism Organization, immunization, vaccination, vaccines, disease prevention, health protection, immune sensitization, man, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, India, South Africa, Commonwealth of Nations, lower-middle income countries, medium Human Development Index countries, South Asia, Asia, Homo, Hominidae, primates, mammals, vertebrates, Chordata, animals, eukaryotes, Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Coronavirinae, Coronaviridae, Nidovirales, positive-sense ssRNA Viruses, ssRNA Viruses, RNA Viruses, viruses, Anglophone Africa, Africa, high Human Development Index countries, Southern Africa, Africa South of Sahara, upper-middle income countries, choice, medicines, pharmaceuticals, legal aspects, legal principles, nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, SARS-CoV-2, subsaharan Africa, viral infections
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Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
CAB Abstracts
Type of study:
Qualitative research
Topics:
Vaccines
Language:
English
Journal:
Health and Human Rights: An International Journal
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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