The White House is “evaluating” whether to temporarily suspend patents on coronavirus vaccines, which would allow poorer countries to produce the drugs in their territories. The pressure for the United States to adopt this measure is growing strongly as the country advances in its vaccination plan – more than half of the adult population of the country has already received the treatment – and also because India faces the worst wave of the covid-19 that a nation has suffered since the beginning of the pandemic.
The United States says it is studying how to maximize global production and supply of vaccines at the lowest cost. “There are many different ways to do that. At this moment, that [la suspensión de las patentes] It is one of the ways, but we have to evaluate what makes the most sense, ”White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Tuesday, clarifying that President Joe Biden has not made any decision on the matter.
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When Biden spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, they broached the issue of vaccine intellectual property. “It was briefly discussed. We are analyzing it, but I have nothing to say about our position at this time, “a senior White House official said in a teleconference, detailing the conversation between the two leaders. On that day, Washington announced that it would send oxygen concentrators, drugs and vaccines to New Delhi. India is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, but millions of its people have yet to receive the dose and face a shortage of raw materials.
The US Foreign Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, has described the huge gap between access to medicines in developed and developing countries as “completely unacceptable” and has warned that the pharmaceutical industry needs to make sacrifices in Crisis times. This stance has injected a dose of optimism about the possible decision to be made by the White House on patents, but Psaki clarified Tuesday that Tai has not made any recommendations on the matter so far.
The pressure for Biden to waive intellectual property rules has come from everywhere. In a public letter, 170 Nobel laureates and former heads of state from 100 countries asked him to “put the collective right to security for all before the commercial monopolies of a few.” In early April, 10 senators from the left wing of the Democratic Party, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, sent him a letter to endorse India and South Africa’s call to the World Trade Organization to temporarily relax intellectual property rules. So far, Washington has blocked that request.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/the-white-house-considers-suspending-patents-on-coronavirus-vaccines/
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