WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2021) Lobbying in wealthy nations by powerful pharmaceutical firms have stalled a proposal to temporarily waive global trade and intellectual property rules to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.
"The pandemic has laid bare the dangers of having manufacturing capacity for life-saving vaccines concentrated in a few countries where governments have refused to prioritize and mandate intellectual property waivers and technology transfers for rapid diversified and global production," HRW said in a press release.
As a result, access to COVID-19 vaccines remains deeply unequal, with three quarters of more than 5 billion vaccine doses administered in just 10 countries, HRW said, citing World Health Organization (WHO) data.
For example, only 2 percent of Africa's population is fully vaccinated at a time when some wealthy nations have begun offering booster shots, the release added.
HRW also faulted wealthy countries that spent public funds to develop vaccines for failing condition funding on affordability and sharing technology, leaving companies to decide how, when, and where they will manufacture, distribute, and price vaccines.
In May, the United States signaled that it would support negotiations on a proposed waiver. But the European Commission, representing the European Union member states, Switzerland, and several other high-income governments have consistently stalled and blocked efforts to swiftly adopt the waiver, according to the release.
HRW published the release on the eve of a World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva this week where negotiations on vaccine technology transfers are due to resume.
