On Friday, 30 countries led by Costa Rica and the World Health Organisation initiated an effort to distribute vaccines, medicines, and diagnostic tools to counter the global coronavirus pandemic.
While the initiative of the developed countries, called the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, was supported by groups like Doctors Without Borders, a drug industry alliance debated whether this would improve cooperation or broaden access to COVID-19 medicines.
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Costa Rica President Carlos Alvarado said, of the voluntary initiative:
“Vaccines, tests, diagnostics, treatments and other key tools in the coronavirus response must be made universally available as global public goods,”
This initiative, originally proposed in March, aims to create a one-stop-shop for scientific knowledge, data, and intellectual property in the course of the pandemic, which has infected over 5.8 million people and killed some 360 thousand people at the time of writing.
Although, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations, however, raised concerns about undermining the protection of intellectual property, which the industry group said, allows for collaboration and will be needed after the pandemic has ended to prepare health systems for new challenges.
The federation said:
“By urging licences or non-enforcement declarations for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines to be granted on a non-exclusive global basis, the ‘Solidarity Call to Action’ promotes a one-size-fits all model that disregards the specific circumstances of each situation, each product and each country,”
The WHO said that the countries participating in the alliance are:
Argentina, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Mozambique, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Sudan, the Netherlands, East Timor, and Uruguay.
The Panthera Post 