At the end of the day humanity across the globe is in jeopardy due to a pandemic. With so many different countries and ways of thinking, COVID has been in the headlines since December of 2019. Some countries have the virus under control while other countries like India are not so lucky. On Wednesday the U.S. finally agreed to waive the vaccine patent.
A proposal is on the table that could potentially help millions of people around the world, yet there are a lot of people who are not so sure this is the correct way to proceed with the pandemic. What I gathered from what DW had to say is that there seem to be many players at play.
One perspective is from the wealthy, mostly healthy countries where COVID is not as prominent they are not so sure if they want to give up the resources, raw materials, doctors, scientists, etc. The fear here is intellectual property rights and patent protection rules will be loosened. The scale of the global pandemic outweighs the economical and technological problems that come with suspending the patents. 100 plus countries are on board for the temporary suspension.
Pharmaceutical companies are not the biggest advocates either because of the time and cost it takes to create a vaccine not to mention the tedious scientific process it takes to produce. If the proposal goes through it will be months before production can begin, hopefully, by then, the world has a better grip on controlling the virus that’s affected millions of people worldwide.
IMUer’s watch the video for a more in-depth look at what’s going on. Please let us know what you think and leave your comments below.
Source & Video: DW News
Cover Photo: Times Now
