Germany Rejects US Support For Waiving COVID Vaccine Patents

With Germany's disagreement over vaccine patents waiver, the global vaccination process is likely to take a long time.

Patents
Germany Pushes Back Against U.S. announcement to support vaccine patent waiver Image Source: NBC News

Amidst the global demands and discussions around the question of vaccine inequality, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made strong reservations about the U.S’s support for waiving the patents or the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) of COVID-19 vaccines.

Bloomberg reported that on Thursday, through an email, a German government spokesperson said that the U.S’s support to the demand for a patent waiver would create “severe complications” in the production side of the vaccines.

Extending support to the arguments of the pharmaceutical industry, Berlin said that “The protection of intellectual property is a source of innovation and this has to remain so in the future.” It said that any patent waiver will take away the incentive for aggressively engaging in the research and development of vaccines by the drugmakers in the future and also raised concerns regarding the quality of the vaccines if manufactured elsewhere with inefficient technology.

U.S. Backs the Proposal to Remove IPRs of COVID-19 Vaccines

Earlier, Reuters had reported that U.S. President Joe Biden, while talking to reporters on Wednesday extended his support to the proposal for the waiver. This came in the wake of widespread demand for the waiver of patents in the case of COVID-19 vaccines so as to make up for the deficit in poorer countries. Katherine Tai, the American Ambassador in a statement, supported the proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO).”This is a global health crisis and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.”, she said through a statement. It also said that they will participate in any “text-based negotiations” for the same because “the Administration’s aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible”.

Since for the World Trade Organization to go ahead with the suspension of IPRs of the vaccines, the decision must be unanimous, given the current situation, it is being said that the process is likely to take a long time if at all any common ground is achieved.

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