INTRODUCTION

Since the outbreak of the deadly covid-19 virus, several countries around the world have been pushing all efforts to develop a vaccine that will end the spread of this virus. However, certain intellectual property laws may lead to conflict regarding the availability of the vaccines developed for global use. International organisations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) play a crucial role in the promotion of numerous agreements that affect public health and ensure equal distribution of health products around the world. These agreements include the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which requires all the WTO members to adopt minimum standards when it comes to protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights relating to public health matters. TRIPS is the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property that incorporates the Paris Convention; Berne Convention; Rome Convention; and the Treaty on IP in Respect of Integrated Circuits. There have been issues in the past with the TRIPS as far its potential of reducing access to global vaccines. However, at the Doha Conference, it was declared that TRIPS must not prevent any country in taking measure to protect its health system.[1] Article 31 of TRIPS provides a guidance and ensures intellectual property rights will not be a barrier in the protection of public health by governing the issuing of compulsory licensing for vaccines.[2] Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights further emphasis that health should not be taken as a privilege but a human right for everyone.[3] In this article, I will evaluate the effects of TRIPS on the access of vaccines worldwide. Furthermore, I will suggest approaches that international organisations may adopt in ensuring equal access to future vaccines by the world population.

TRIPS AGREEMENTS

The development of vaccines has not suffered a major blow due to the Intellectual Property Rights, the know-how of the manufacturing processes that are involved in the production of the vaccines is the one that has caused a decline in the availability of vaccines worldwide. Companies and organisations that are consistently involved in the producing of vaccines are not optimising the investment returns when they have to be open about their research and developments.[4] They argue that intellectual property laws will result in creation of innovative research and development of vaccines. The Wealth Health Organisation (WHO) investigation into the vaccine industry illustrates that a majority of countries do not consider intellectual property aspects to be a barrier in vaccine research and development. Even now there has been no clear indication that TRIPS will have an effect in the innovation stimulating of vaccines due to lesser return of investment in research and developments of vaccines. In fact, this situation can be radically changed by the TRIPS agreements through the compulsory licences introduced by TRIPS. Such changes must be managed in a manner that will lead to developing frameworks for licensing and technology transfer agreements between organisations and companies producing vaccines, to promoting innovative vaccine development in developing countries and monitoring the possibilities of free trade agreements that will give greater effect to TRIPS.[5] The success of such initiatives relies on the role of international organisations in ensuring equitable access to vaccines across the world.

ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION

International collaboration on improving public health is fundamentally in building effective global health systems. Towards ensuring this, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization, (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) must collaborate together in their activities, including other international partners as well, to support global challenges to improve health systems around the world.[6] They must help countries to develop the capacity to deal with challenges that they face in the public health sector. This must be done by setting up best policies, ensuring global share of information and monitoring the effects of TRIPS as a key campaign in which international organisations must lead to ensure the global availability of vaccines. They must ensure the availability of technologies used for public health research; they must avoid TRIPS-plus and free trade agreements that will limit access to health products, and they must improve the understanding and management of Intellectual Property Rights.[7] They must set minimum standards in improving the quality of regulations that deal with health production in order to improve the quality of products produced. Support must be given to those countries that have better resources to produce vaccines so they can continue with their effective research and developments. They must ensure that vaccines are shared globally and made affordable to all the countries. They must monitor the effect that TRIPS have on the innovation market of vaccines.

 CONCLUSION

Lack of resources makes it impossible for countries to have equitable access to health facilities and vaccines. In times of crisis, as now with covid-19, these countries have low trading power, and this affects their future as well in having access to vaccines. WHO must ensure that these countries’ medical needs are met by the global communities. In this time of covid-19 pandemic, the WHO has made a global call for countries to share resources to combat the deadly virus.[8] Furthermore, WHO has done incredible good by ensuring that health practitioners from resourced countries like Cuba were deployed around the globe to minimise the impact of covid-19. If steps to share resources are not currently being implemented during such times of covid-19, it is hard to imagine that a future vaccine will be equitably distributed among the world population. TRIPS agreement places a positive obligation to provide necessary medical care and protect the public health of their citizens. International organisations protecting health rights must therefore develop a more conclusive approach to ensure equal access to medicines, encouraging universal guidelines and global cooperation mechanisms. Instead of using the interdependence of nations as a bargaining tool, states should recognise a larger cause and work towards the common goal of ensuring availability of vaccines globally. This pandemic of covid-19 could be a great opportunity to create a more cooperative global health system among countries and prevent unnecessary loss of life in poorer countries in the future by using the TRIPS agreement as the tool for that drive. Finding the right balance between the interests of creators, users and the public is difficult. Balancing the interests is not a purely economic calculation, it is an inherently political exercise which has important social implications. Health issues should be treated as basic human right not a privilege for those who can afford. 

REFERENCES

§  Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. (2003), Paragraph 6, [online]. Available at: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/implem_para6_e.htm

§  TRIPS Agreement, Article 31, [online]. Available at: https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips.pdf.

§  Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, [online]. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

§  Health Affairs 25, no. 4 (2006): 1061–1069; 10.1377/hlthaff.25.4.1061

§  Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, and Public Health, “WHO Workshop on Intellectual Property Rights and Vaccines in Developing Countries” (Report on a WHO meeting, 19–20 April 2004), http://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/events/vaccines.

§  Boston Consulting Group, World Bank, and WHO, “Draft Study Report: Global Vaccine Supply: the Changing Role of Suppliers” (Study commissioned for GAVI, 2005).

§  J. Milstien and M. Kaddar, “Managing the Effect of TRIPS on Availability of Priority Vaccines,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 84, no. 5 (2006): 360–365.

§  WHO Report. (2020), A Co-ordinated Global Research Roadmap: 2019 Novel Coronavirus, [online]. Available at: https://www.who.int/blueprint/priority-diseases/key-action/Coronavirus_Roadmap_V9.pdf