E-Paper
WTO debating on anti-Covid jab IPR
On the table for a two-day meeting of a WTO panel opening on Tuesday is a revised proposal presented by India and South Africa for a temporary IPR waiver on Covid-19 vaccines.
Envoys from World Trade Organization (WTO) member nations are taking up a proposal to ease patents and other intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines to help developing countries fight the pandemic, an idea backed by the Biden administration but opposed in other wealthy countries with strong pharma industries.
On the table for a two-day meeting of a WTO panel opening on Tuesday is a revised proposal presented by India and South Africa for a temporary IPR waiver on Covid-19 vaccines. The idea has drawn support from over 60 countries, which now include the US and China. Insiders cautioned that a breakthrough wasn’t expected.
Blinken spells out targets for distribution of jabs
With the US sending millions of its Covid-19 vaccines to several countries, including India, secretary of state Antony Blinken said there is a need to increase production capacity on a regional basis across the globe.
Testifying before the House foreign affairs committee on the state department’s 2022 budgetary proposals, Blinken said it is important to have three-fourths of the world vaccinated soon.
The US, he said, has 80 million vaccines that will be distributed. “We want to make sure that anything we send out is safe and effective. It’s starting now and it’s going to be rolled out over the coming days and weeks between now and the end of July,” Blinken said.
1 million Europeans have EU Covid certificates
More than one million Europeans have received the new EU Covid-19 health certificate being rolled out to unlock travel within the bloc, the European Commission said on Tuesday. EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders announced the figure to the European Parliament ahead of a vote to enshrine the document in law for the continent’s summer tourism season.
It is expected to be passed by a big majority after agreement between MEPs and the EU’s 27 member states on the details, with the vote result known early on Wednesday.
The UK government is said to be weighing up a delay of around a fortnight beyond the June 21 timeline set for the final stage of a road map to end all legal lockdown restrictions, amid a continuing rise in the cases of the Delta variant of Covid-19 in parts of the country.
