Don't let patent rows hamper search for virus vaccine: UN agency
May 27, 2020
World Health Organization member states last week adopted a resolution recognising that extensive immunisation against COVID-19 would be a "global public good", and pushing for any vaccine to be equitably and fairly distributed to all.
COVID-19| VACCINE
The UN patent agency has hailed the push to create a coronavirus vaccine and make it globally available but warned against allowing copyright rows to overshadow and delay the process.
"What we need in the first place here is innovation," Francis Gurry, the head of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), told reporters in a virtual briefing.
World Health Organization member states last week adopted a resolution recognising that extensive immunisation against COVID-19 would be a "global public good", and pushing for any vaccine to be equitably and fairly distributed to all.
Some, including South Africa, are calling for any vaccine against the novel coronavirus to be patent-free.
But that idea has met with pushback from pharmaceutical companies and Washington, which opposes any challenge to international intellectual property rights.
Gurry pointed out that "there are provisions in international legal instruments and there are provisions in national legal instruments which allow access, or intellectual property rights to be overridden in certain circumstances."
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed over 350,000 people out of the more than 5.5 million infected worldwide, certainly represents such an emergency, he said.