Affordable Covid drugs kept out of reach by sluggish WTO

There is still a long way to go before Covid vaccines and treatments can be made in South Africa and other developing countries without paying the huge charges demanded by the big US and European drug companies.

The World Trade Organization announced last week that it had taken a step towards a patent waiver that would allow developing countries to make the drugs they need for as long as five years.

The EU, India, South Africa, and the US, known as the Quad, claimed to have come to an agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (Trips) waiver proposal.

The deal only provided for a continuation of Quad negotiations, and at the moment there is nothing more than what was on the table last year.

It is a tragedy that it has taken almost two years and millions of deaths to reach this point, and a travesty that the action proposed falls well short.

WTO boss Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, elected last year amid a fanfare of hope and expectation, appears to have provided cover for big pharma rather than pushing for wider access, as she promised.

By the time this long game plays out, Pfizer shareholders will be even richer than they are today, and Ngozi's supporters say she is playing a long game. Despite official claims to the contrary, she is in favour of a full waiver, but progress towards a breakthrough remains elusive.

The WTO has placed corporate interests over the needs of global health.

The EU nations are distracted by the war in Ukraine and want their own big pharma to go to the US.

This is not the Trips Waiver supported by over 100 governments. The EU does not endorse it. It is not enough for a disease that has killed 20 million people.

For months, other experts have been demanding change. In a letter to the president of South Africa, the director of the pan-African office of the charity, Peter Kamalingin, and the professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jayati Ghosh, accused the WTO of failing.

They said the EU had launched a blockade of any actual waivers of intellectual property barriers, and criticized the US for its stance on the issue. The EU and US require countries to seek authorisation on a product-by-product basis, meaning no simplified pathway for follow-on manufacturers to produce and enter the market.

The experts who support South Africa's campaign for a full-waiver of all intellectual property and patents on Covid medicines said the WTO proposals needed to cover life-saving treatments and diagnostics for Covid-19 because they are a vital part of an arsenal to prevent, treat and cure.

The complexity of vaccine manufacture, which relies on more than just access to patent information, is one of the reasons why the WTO decision-making apparatus is slow. He knows that taking off the table the secrets behind treatments for Covid-19 severely limits the ability of poorer countries to tackle further outbreaks of the disease.

The WTO's Trips council must be consulted before any of the rights of the EU are exercised, according to the People's Vaccine Alliance.

The EU and US play hardball. Moderna and Pfizer, which use the German firm Biontech's intellectual property, will have new vaccines on the market by the autumn.

CureVac is partnering with Britain's GSK to make their own version. There are many pharma companies in the hunt.

This means that once again there will be new, better drugs for the rich countries, with developing nations at the back of the queue, and still paying top dollar for earlier vaccines that are less tailored to viral variations.