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Brazilian delegation has prepared proposal to extend the flexibility that may eventually be agreed upon against Covid-19 — Foto: Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil
Brazil will propose that flexibilities for patent breaking and technology transfer for the production of anti-Covid vaccines be extended to medicines and treatments against tropical and endemic diseases, sources say. The proposal will be formally presented to the more than 160 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) next week.
The so-called Quad – the European Union (EU), the United States, India, and South Africa – has defined an agreement to facilitate the breaking of patents to combat Covid-19, which will continue to be negotiated now with the other countries. But this comes at a time when the pandemic has already slowed in several countries.
Africa’s largest anti-Covid vaccine factory is downsizing due to a lack of demand for doses. India’s Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine producer, stopped manufacturing Covishield, its version of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, last December, claiming it had 200 million doses in stock, as reported by Financial Times.
At the WTO, the agreement text limits “eligible members” to developing countries and only to those that exported less than 10% of the world’s Covid-19 vaccine sales in 2021. Brazil considers that it will be eligible, all the more so because it does not even appear on the list of exporters.
Now, ahead of the conference of trade ministers scheduled for June in Geneva, the Brazilian delegation has prepared a proposal to extend the flexibility that may eventually be agreed upon against Covid-19.
“Technology and know-how transfer are important tools for building capacities to combat Covid-19 and beyond,” the Brazilian text says. “Transfer of technology initiatives designed for Covid-19 can and should be used to create capabilities for other health emergencies, particularly those endemic to developing countries and that receive less attention from global research and development frameworks.”
Thus, for Brazil, the use of TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) flexibilities, voluntary licensing agreements and other solutions involving intellectual property rights “must be accompanied by a political commitment to support initiatives to transfer technology and know-how to developing countries to combat not only Covid-19, but also other health crises.”
The Brazilian government argues that one lesson learned from the Covid-19 pandemic is that inequity in access to health products, notably vaccines, therapies and diagnostics, and unequal capacities among countries to prevent and respond to a health emergency are a threat to all. “Addressing these inequities and capacity imbalances will amount to ensuring that the world as a whole will be safer and better prepared to face other health crises,” the text says.
It notes that, alongside Covid-19, other health emergencies place a heavy burden on the developing world and inflict devastating health, social and economic consequences. It mentions estimates that tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS will have caused more than 2.8 million deaths by 2020, mainly in developing countries. The WHO estimates that neglected tropical diseases affect the health and livelihoods of more than 1.5 billion people around the world.
“Encouraging medical research and development for diseases that disproportionately affect people in developing countries is a particular challenge,” the Brazilian text says. It mentions a 2015 analysis, which found that poverty-related and neglected diseases account for 14% of the global disease burden, but attract only 1.3% of global research and development spending.
The conclusion is that the trade and health initiative at the WTO should not be indifferent to these issues. “The scope of the WTO discussions must be broad enough to consider not only abstract future health threats, but also current endemic challenges and poverty-related diseases in the context of the developing world. In other words, the discussions need to respond to other health emergencies,” the text adds.
Brazil recalls that the transfer and dissemination of technology is a central objective of the multilateral trade system inscribed in the TRIPS Agreement. This document recognizes, in its objectives and principles (articles 7 and 8), that the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights must contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology. The agreement also created a legal obligation for developed countries to provide incentives to companies and institutions in their territories to promote and encourage technology transfer to the least developed countries to enable them to create a sound and viable technological base.
A balanced and comprehensive outcome on trade and health at the WTO should recognize and incorporate this perspective, the Brazilian delegation says. According to a source, the Brazilian proposal has been well-received by other countries.
Source: Valor International