Global Pandemic Will Rage Until WTO Approves Vaccine Patent Waiver (Stiglitz- Wallach)
The WTO must not postpone this decision. It needs to call an online meeting of its General Council and adopt the waiver this week.
Joseph Stiglitz, Lori Wallach
December 1, 2021 by CNN
If international organizations are subject to karma, last week's abrupt postponement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference, the body's first major decision-making gathering in four years, was fated to be. News of the emergence of Omicron, the latest coronavirus variant, not only caused the meeting to be delayed but it also shined a light on how the international community has failed to get the virus under control.
Over the past two years, the global scientific community has figured out the pathogen that causes Covid-19 and developed vaccines and antivirals to fight the virus. Rapid production has meant that everyone in wealthy countries who wanted a vaccine has gotten one. But the market, on its own, has failed to provide enough for the rest of the world.
Since October 2020, a large number of WTO member countries have sought a temporary waiver of the organization's expansive intellectual property restrictions, which limit the production of vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests to certain pharmaceutical companies. But a few WTO members have blocked this initiative, which is needed to ensure sufficient supply of Covid-19 medicines to inoculate the world and end the variant cycle that otherwise will indefinitely prolong the pandemic.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/01/global-pandemic-will-rage-until-wto-approves-vaccine-patent-waiver
( There is no rational argument against what they present here....none. )
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