To accelerate the global deployment of Covid-19 vaccination, MEPs are calling for a temporary revocation of intellectual property rights protection.
In a resolution adopted today with 355 yes, 263 against and 71 abstentions, the European Parliament asks for a temporary derogation from the 'Trips' agreement of the World Trade Organization, in order to improve global access to medicines related to Covid-19 at affordable cost and to address world production constraints and supply shortages.
According to MEPs, voluntary licensing agreements (where the vaccine developer decides to whom and under what conditions the patent can be licensed for production) and the voluntary transfer of technology and technical skills to countries where industries already exist Vaccine manufacturers represent the most important way to scale and accelerate global production over the long term. To address production difficulties, MEPs call on the European Union to "swiftly remove export barriers and replace its export authorization mechanism with export transparency requirements". For their part, the United States and the United Kingdom should "immediately abolish their ban on the export of vaccines and the raw materials needed to produce them. Furthermore, MEPs stress that 11 billion doses are needed to vaccinate 70% of the world population and that only a small part of that amount has been produced. The EU must support production capacities on the African continent as only 0.3% of the vaccine doses administered worldwide (around 1.6 billion doses) have been delivered in the poorest 29 countries while most of them are has been administered in industrialized and vaccine-producing countries.The EU must support production capacities on the African continent as only 0.3% of the vaccine doses administered worldwide (around 1.6 billion doses) were delivered in the poorest 29 countries while most of them were administered. in industrialized and vaccine-producing countries.The EU must support production capacities on the African continent as only 0.3% of the vaccine doses administered worldwide (around 1.6 billion doses) were delivered in the poorest 29 countries while most of them were administered. in industrialized and vaccine-producing countries.
The Covax Global Vaccine Distribution Mechanism is an important tool for MEPs calling for a significant increase in their financial and non-financial contributions. Finally, MEPs call on the EU to ensure that future pre-purchase agreements are fully disclosed, especially for next-generation vaccines, as well as including transparency requirements for suppliers.
