Two years after the start of the pandemic, a compromise between rich and developing countries could be found on the lifting of patents for vaccines against Covid-19.
According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), this late agreement could take shape in “the next few weeks”.
"We believe that a common ground, a reasonable compromise could be found that would allow developing countries to have access to technology transfers and intellectual property while encouraging innovation and research," said this Friday in Paris the Director General of the WTO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, during a press conference.
"We hope there will be progress in the coming weeks," she said, adding that she could not promise that a compromise could be found in time for the summit between the European Union and the EU. African Union on February 17 and 18 in Brussels.
Read alsoCovid-19: the lifting of patents on vaccines, miracle solution or mirage?
She recalled that the question of the lifting of intellectual property rights on vaccines opposed two groups of countries.
On the one hand "a group who are mainly developing countries, numbering almost a hundred, who believe that a lifting of intellectual property rights is essential to encourage and support manufacturing capacities" at home, he said. -she explains.
On the other hand, a group of “predominantly developed countries who believe that ensuring access [to vaccines] is most important…and who do not want to do anything that would discourage innovation and research and development because it this is how new vaccines were invented,” explained the director of the WTO.
“Intellectual property should never be an obstacle”
“What is important is access to vaccines, which requires donations, easier distribution, the need to lift trade restrictions as much as possible and which must also allow, now and in the future, the creation of production lines”, declared for his part the French Minister of Foreign Trade Franck Riester.
"This is already the case when we see what is happening in Senegal, Rwanda, South Africa," he added.
According to Franck Riester, “in developing countries, intellectual property should never be an obstacle”.
"If it is necessary - and this is the position of the EU - to further facilitate access to voluntary licenses, to compulsory licenses which already exist, let us work on it, we are ready to do so in the most constructive way possible. “, assured the French minister, whose country holds the presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2022.
In the United States, the Biden administration had come out in favor of lifting patents on Covid vaccines.
A position that had aroused the ire of pharmaceutical companies and had put pressure on the European Union.
France had also shown itself unfavorable to it.