What will countries do to get enough COVID-19 vaccine?

So who can guarantee that the same situation will not occur with Covid-19 vaccines: no company in the world can produce 8 billion? vaccinations in a few months.

The situation in the Republic of South Africa (PAR) in the 2000s provides a precedent for this problem. At that time, around 42 million people lived in the country. people, 20 percent. of them had HIV, in the military, up to 45 percent. Although the median annual income was $ 2,600, the drugs cost $ 1,000 per person per month to treat HIV. The same drugs, in other states, cost about 10 times less.

In an attempt to address the situation, the South African parliament enacted parallel trade that would allow the importation of drugs from other countries. Pharmaceutical companies have filed a lawsuit against PAR alleging that said rule is unconstitutional because it is contrary to PAR’s international agreements. It refers to the TRIPS agreement, in which the parties agree to protect the patent system and prohibit parallel trade in medicines (except in the European Union). The same TRIPS agreement allows, in an emergency situation, the granting of compulsory licenses, that is, the granting of an authorization to another national company to manufacture the necessary medicines without the consent of the patent holder. Therefore, the pharmaceutical companies opposed PAR’s actions and asked why it was not using the compulsory license option.

PAR, for its part, responded that although it would like to take advantage of this opportunity, it cannot do so because the pharmaceutical industry is not developed at the national level and there is not a single company that can produce a sufficient quantity of drugs of this complexity. The story ended when drug companies withdrew their lawsuit over public pressure and reputational risk, and during the years of the Doha accords, it was decided that countries could still import drugs from another country in the event of a public health crisis.

However, the exporting country cannot import more drugs than the importing country needs to manage the crisis, and the importing country has to show that it really cannot produce the adequate quantity of drugs on its own. These fuses, although logical, make the procedure very difficult and this exception has so far only been used once. In short, in a crisis situation, the parties can either produce the necessary drugs themselves or import them from a country that can produce a sufficient quantity of drugs that are significantly cheaper than the patent holder.

Despite these exceptions, in 2020 in October, PAR and India submitted an application to the World Exchange Organization to suspend patents for the Covid-19 vaccine. The parties argue that the patent system will prevent access to sufficient vaccines. The problems that arose in the spring, when pharmaceutical giant Roche refused to disclose an essential component for the production of Covid-19 diagnostic tests, confirm this. Meanwhile, developed countries see no problem in claiming that the patent system is effective and protects innovation, which means that no one will want to develop drugs unless they have a guarantee that they will be able to generate sufficient profits later.

In this situation, there is a lot of hypocrisy in the air, because it is in the rich countries where the strongest pharmaceutical industry is concentrated, in addition, the rich countries have already bought more than 50%. of all possible Covid-19 vaccines, although the population of rich countries covers only 14 percent. world populations. International NGOs are working to mobilize forces and contribute to the position of the PAR and India, and agree that the most vulnerable countries will suffer the most in the future without changing the patent system.

In this situation, there is a lot of hypocrisy in the air, as it is in rich countries that the strongest pharmaceutical industry is concentrated.

So far, the World Exchange Organization has not issued a decision to suspend patents for Covid-19 vaccines. Will binding parties violate patents at the risk of being sued, and will pharmaceutical companies agree to share the license with other manufacturers? We will see soon.