Every country should have the right to make its own vaccines during a pandemic. That’s the principle underpinning the campaign to temporarily waive intellectual property (IP) protection on coronavirus vaccines. The campaign was initiated by India and South Africa, and is being backed by more than 100 countries, along with international organizations including the World Health Organization and the United Nations AIDS charity, UNAIDS. The goal is to reduce the barriers to countries producing their own vaccines — particularly for the lowest-income nations.
At present, the proposal does not have the support of the pharmaceutical industry, nor that of most high-income nations. Instead, these countries are pledging to share more of their own vaccines with low-income nations and to provide more funding to charitable vaccine-provision schemes such as COVAX. However, in a surprising and welcome move earlier this month, the United States, Russia and China came out in support of an IP waiver on vaccines.
The significance of the US decision in particular cannot be overstated, because the country is the world’s largest market for pharmaceuticals. For decades, US governments have worked with industry, universities and other research-intensive nations in setting — and enforcing — IP rules, most recently through the World Trade Organization (WTO), where the IP waiver proposal is being discussed. Even a few months ago, the mere idea of the United States taking this position would have been unthinkable. Now that it has done so, those countries still holding out — notably Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and European Union member states — need to follow suit.