Prognosis
WTO Approves Vaccine-Patent Waiver to Help Combat Covid Pandemic
- Vaccine glut makes waiver unnecessary tool to fight Covid-19
- India says the ‘half-baked’ deal won’t help produce vaccines
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The World Trade Organization approved a politically important deal Friday to water down intellectual property restrictions for the manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines after an almost two-year effort involving scores of high-level meetings and much political arm twisting.
During the early morning hours in Geneva, WTO ministers approved a package of agreements that included the vaccine patent waiver, which Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala previously said was necessary to end the “morally unacceptable” inequity of access to Covid-19 vaccines.