"My job is to get WTO members
to work together to find a pragmatic solution to the unequal distribution of vaccines
" to developing countries. This was stated by the director general of the WTO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaking at the second day of State of the Union. "We need to increase production capacity," explained Okonjo-Iweala because "80 percent of vaccine production is concentrated in ten countries in North America, South Asia and Europe" and
the recent US pronouncement on the issue of patents "will give a boost to negotiations"
.
"
There is a lack of production capacity, the problem is not the liberalization of patents
". This is what
Angela Merkel's spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer
reiterated today in Berlin
during the Berlin press conference, replying to Washington's proposal to revoke the patents on anticovid vaccines. "The very important issue for us is that the whole world is supplied with vaccines," added Demmer. Yesterday the same spokesperson had anticipated the Chancellor's skepticism about Joe Biden's proposal to the Seuddeutsche Zeitung. "Our position on patents is not new", he added, and "contacts and exchanges with the US take place regularly".