President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on the world’s richest countries to actively support a temporary patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines to allow Africa to manufacture its own Covid-19 vaccines
According to BBC, only about 2% of the African continent has been vaccinated so far with some countries facing vaccine shortages.
“We call on all G7 members to support the waiver and engage in negotiations that will result in a balanced outcome that massively and rapidly expands production in Africa across the world. The negotiations must be concluded soon because the cost of inaction is measured in people’s lives.
“If the world is to emerge from this grave crisis, it is essential that we work together to mobilise and direct resources to those countries in the greatest need – and that we do so now,” News24 quoted Ramaphosa as saying.
Ramaphosa said world leaders needed to act with urgency, and at an unprecedented scale.
“If we are to save lives and end the pandemic, we need to expand and diversify manufacturing and get medical products to treat, combat, and prevent the pandemic to as many people as quickly as possible,” said Ramaphosa, according to The Citizen.
He continued: “The proposed TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) waiver is a temporary, targeted and proportional response, which recognises the unprecedented nature of the pandemic.”
South Africa and India have been driving a campaign to achieve this.
In a virtual address to the G7 summit, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi also sought the support of the grouping to lift patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, Hindustan Times reported.
The G7 leaders met over the weekend to discuss a range of issues, including climate change, Covid-19, and the state of the global economy.
Currently, only pharmaceutical companies that own the patents for the vaccines are allowed to manufacture the jabs. But lifting the patent rights means that they will lose this exclusive right. Their formulas can then be used by other companies who have the required technology to manufacture generic versions of these vaccines, without fear that they will be sued.
Potentially, this means that vaccines can be manufactured at a much greater scale in South Africa, and in other countries, a Fin24 report said.
PICTURE: Twitter/@CyrilRamaphosa
