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JOHANNESBURG. – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday the “selfish, unjust” refusal of pharmaceutical companies and allied Western governments to entertain emergency patent waivers on Covid-19 vaccines was endangering the entire world.
In unusually impassioned remarks, Ramaphosa lambasted a resistance to calls by India and South Africa for temporary patent waivers to ramp up production. “It is selfish, it is unjust, it is wholly unfair,” Ramaphosa, proponent of the waiver, told the opening virtual session of the Qatar Economic Forum, a day after South Africa registered 13 000 new cases in a third COVID-19 wave.
“We are facing an emergency that is affecting the entire world … and some countries are refusing this provision to be waived,” he said.
The proposed waiver from the WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has support in principle from US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
But the pharmaceutical industry is against the waiver, as are Germany, Switzerland and the World Bank. They argue it would stifle innovation and that vaccine supplies are constrained by a lack of manufacturing capacity. Both India and South Africa say they have ample capacity. “All we are asking is … a three-year period to enable countries that have the capability to be able to produce the vaccines,” Ramaphosa said.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday that it is setting up a technology transfer hub for producing mRNA Cocid-19 vaccines in South Africa, which could start manufacturing doses in 9 to 12 months.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement aimed at boosting access to vaccines across the African continent, where cases and deaths had increased by almost 40% over the past week.
“Today I am delighted to announce that WHO is in discussions with a consortium of companies and institutions to establish a technology transfer hub in South Africa,” Tedros told a news conference.
“The consortium involves a company Afrigen Biologics & Vaccines, which will act as the hub both by manufacturing mRNA vaccines itself & by providing training to a manufacturer Biovac,” he said. – Reuters.
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