{"id":6498,"date":"2021-06-15T04:48:12","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T04:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/?p=6498"},"modified":"2025-11-22T11:49:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:49:16","slug":"covid-19-vaccines-g7-nations-patent-protections-are-blocking-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/covid-19-vaccines-g7-nations-patent-protections-are-blocking-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"African countries want to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines. G7 nations\u2019 patent protections are blocking the way"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

By Nosmot Gbadamosi<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

At the G7 summit last week in Cornwall, southwest England, Western countries announced a plan to vaccinate the rest of the world that will rely on donations from richer countries.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

G7 nations pledged 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses, but 11 billion are needed. Vaccine campaigners say the donations are insignificant. \u201cWe can\u2019t donate our way out of this crisis,\u201d said Anna Marriott, Oxfam\u2019s health policy manager and policy co-lead for the People\u2019s Vaccine Alliance. \u201cA trickle of charity from rich countries is not going to end this pandemic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Almost all African nations are pushing for World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries to waive intellectual property protections around Covid vaccines so that manufacturing can be done on the continent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Vaccine shipments to Africa have almost entirely stopped<\/a>, even as Covid rates<\/a> in multiple African countries<\/a> are rising rapidly. India\u2019s Serum Institute\u2019s suspension on exports as India battles the Delta variant has left the vaccine sharing initiative, Covax, running low.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThe threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising,\u201d said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa. \u201cWhile many countries outside Africa have now vaccinated their high-priority groups and are able to even consider vaccinating their children, African countries are unable to even follow up with second doses for high-risk groups.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Around three percent<\/a> of Africans have received a first dose, which pales in comparison to every other region in the world. In Asia, 29 percent have received a first dose, while Europe is at 55 percent and North America is at 65 percent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

India and South Africa\u2019s proposal submitted last October to waive patent laws covered under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, known as TRIPS, is still being considered by the WTO. While the Biden administration said<\/a> it supports the TRIPS waiver,\u00a0Germany is opposed<\/a> to the emergency measure that experts say would rapidly expand vaccine access for developing nations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Without the purchasing power of wealthier nations, Africa has found itself last in the queue. A patent waiver could allow five countries<\/a> with production capabilities, Senegal, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, to start manufacturing and supplying Covid-19 vaccines to the continent. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general at the WHO, said he hoped some African vaccine sites could start manufacturing by the end of this year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In total, 50 million doses have been sent to Africa, a continent of 1.2 billion people. In Nigeria, where just over one percent of the 206 million population has been vaccinated, first doses have stopped to safeguard second jabs. Some countries, including Burkina Faso and Chad, have not vaccinated<\/a> any citizens.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"\r\n
A nurse talks to a woman following her vaccination, as South Africa rolls out the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines to the elderly at the Munsieville Care for the Aged Centre outside Johannesburg, South Africa May 17, 2021. REUTERS\/Siphiwe Sibeko<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Patent waivers<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

African nations face a tough fight against Big Pharma. Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom\u2014home to large pharmaceutical companies that are lobbying hard to hold onto the vaccine patents\u2014continue to reject the waiver. Japan, another pharmaceutical powerhouse, doesn\u2019t support the waiver but isn\u2019t obstructing it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In 1997, the South African government passed a law allowing the production of cheap, unbranded versions of expensive HIV and AIDS drugs. Western Big Pharma companies sued, but the South African government refused to back down, saying it had a duty to protect citizens. It now seems history is repeating itself.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Following months of pressure, U.S. president Joe Biden backed<\/a> the waiver, prompting lobbyists representing pharmaceuticals including Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson to call his stance an \u201cempty promise.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The TRIPS waiver \u201cflies in the face of President Biden\u2019s stated policy of building up American infrastructure and creating jobs by handing over American innovations to countries looking to undermine our leadership in biomedical discovery,\u201d the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates assured the world that the debate around patent waivers was simply a distraction. “The thing that’s holding things back in this case is not intellectual property,\u201d Gates told Sky News<\/a>. \u201cThere’s not, like, some idle vaccine factory with regulatory approval that makes magically safe vaccines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Oxford University, the research lab that developed the AstraZeneca vaccine, originally wanted to make it available via open license. However, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation persuaded Oxford to sign an exclusive deal with AstraZeneca. Gates is also an investor<\/a> in German vaccine company CureVac.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In the wake of Biden\u2019s waiver support, the Gates Foundation, which cofounded the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI), an organization that co-leads Covax, said in a statement<\/a> it supports a \u201cnarrow\u201d waiver during the pandemic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Critics say Gates\u2019 own fortune is built on patents rights, and Gates\u2019 personal relationship with copyright law has harmed Covid-19 vaccine distribution around the world. Intellectual property waivers run \u201ccounter to the approach that the Gates foundation generally adopted towards encouraging access to medicines, which is not to disturb the dominant business model,\u201d Rohit Malpani, a public health consultant, board member for Unitaid, and former director of policy and analysis at M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, told Sahelien.com.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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A man walks past newspaper billboards during the Covid-19 outbreak in Johannesburg, South Africa, February 8, 2021. REUTERS\/Sumaya Hisham<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cIt is really the nature of philanthropy to try to paper over the failings of systems that we\u2019ve created instead of trying to reform them,\u201d Malpani said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Gates Foundation has been crucial to providing global public health<\/a> treatment in poorer nations, but Malpani questions its dominance. \u201cWhether it is funding media that reports on this, funding civil society that advocates on this, funding the institutions that manage global health or holding intellectual property, they are everywhere,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The logic of waiver skeptics is that IP rights do not obstruct vaccines production, but ensure their safety. Vaccine production often requires more than 200 components<\/a> that are manufactured in different countries.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Anna Marriott called these arguments \u201ctired.\u201d \u201cWe know that many developing countries have extensive experience of producing vaccines. South Africa is already producing the Johnson and Johnson vaccine but currently has no control over where those vaccines get distributed,\u201d Marriott told Sahelien.com.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI do think it\u2019s wrong that any private individual has such huge influence over global health just because they are incredibly wealthy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Scientists are also calling for the transfer of key components. \u201cThe United States are now backing the patent waiver, but at the same time are banning the exports of components and things that are needed to make vaccines,\u201d said Professor Wolfgang Preiser, a virologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cYou can say here is the recipe, please cook it yourself, but I\u2019m not going to give you the pot or the raw materials,\u201d he told Sahelien.com<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Manufacturers in five African countries<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

U.S. export restrictions were put in place under the Defense Production Act, invoked by former President Trump during the start of the pandemic, which the Biden administration has said it will relax<\/a>. Under the act, manufacturers must fulfill domestic needs on items such as plastic bioreactor bags, vials, filters and syringes before export.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cSome of those crucial inputs are also protected, or the production is being restricted by the same kind of monopolies and intellectual property roles,\u201d Marriott explained further. \u201cThere are 1,800 patents on these bioreactor bags.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Preiser believes South Africa is in a good position to start manufacturing for the rest of the continent. \u201cWith a pandemic and widespread disruption, you can\u2019t say that India is the drug manufacturers for the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

He warned that \u201cvery few countries have the scientific and technological expertise and are wealthy enough to do the whole thing on their own.\u201d South Africa and other African nations would need capacity building and funding to manufacture viral vaccines that are expensive to make, he said. \u201cFor example, one thing that you should not use indiscriminately is fetal bovine serum, which is a core ingredient for cell cultures, normally because of the BSE risk,\u201d Preiser said. \u201cYou need to have it from a country which is known not to have BSE cattle.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Biovac Institute in South Africa, the Pasteur Institute of Dakar, Senegal, the Pasteur Institute of Tunis, Tunisia, and Pasteur Institute of Algeria are facilities with potential to manufacture vaccines. Senegal’s President Macky Sall tweeted<\/a> last month after meeting with Brussels officials that he hoped to strengthen EU partnership \u201cthrough the production of Covid-19 vaccines in Senegal.\u201d Egypt is already preparing to manufacture China\u2019s Sinovac<\/a> vaccine.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"\r\n
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, African Union President and President of Congo Democratic Republic Felix Tshisekedi, French President Emmanuel Macron,<\/em> and Senegal’s President Macky Sall<\/em> gather after they held a joint news conference at the end of the Summit on the Financing of African Economies in Paris, France May 18, 2021. Ludovic Marin\/Pool via REUTERS<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Covid-19 vaccine makers have reported staggering profits during the crisis. British-Swedish AstraZeneca and the U.S. pharmaceutical Johnson & Johnson agreed to sell vaccines at no profit until the end of the pandemic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But U.S. messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna have raked in enormous profit<\/a> on the vaccines they\u2019ve produced. Pfizer, which collaborates with German maker BioNTech, said it expects sales<\/a> of at least $26 billion this year. Moderna had a profit of $1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2021.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So far nine new billionaires were created from Covid-19 with a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion – enough to fully vaccinate everyone in lower income countries 1.3 times, according to recent analysis by the People\u2019s Vaccine Alliance<\/a>. Topping the list of newly mega-rich are the chief executives of Moderna and BioNTech, each with a personal wealth of more than $4 billion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Pfizer committed 40 million doses to Covax, but has only shipped less than 2 million<\/a> of those doses so far. Marriott said this equates to less than a day\u2019s production.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Failure of Covax<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There are other vaccines available to African nations. The WHO recently approved two vaccines developed in China. Some scientists are skeptical about those two, as well as Russia\u2019s Sputnik V, because of hasty approvals by their governments without clinical trials<\/a>, though real-world data shows<\/a> positive results for Sputnik V.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This has engineered an over-reliance on AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson by Covax despite production capacity, blood clotting issues leading to vaccine hesitancy, and lower efficacy against the Delta variant.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Manufacturers have also kept vaccine prices opaque. Even with adoption of an at-cost model, South Africa said it bought Oxford-AstraZeneca doses at more than double<\/a> the price paid by most European countries. AstraZeneca says it includes cost of delivery in its pricing and that is what explains different costs for different countries.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In response to Sahelien.com\u2019s questions on whether Covax would broaden its vaccine portfolio following WHO approval of China\u2019s vaccines a spokesperson for GAVI, which runs Covax said it was \u201cin dialogue with several manufacturers, including Sinopharm and Sinovac, to expand and diversify the portfolio further and secure access to additional doses.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A spokesperson for GAVI explained in a statement, \u201cwe have procured enough vaccines to protect half the adult population in 91 of the world\u2019s lower income economies, including 46 in Africa, by early 2022. What we need now, is for all countries with excess supply to share doses with Covax, and to do so sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The GAVI spokesperson argued that patent waivers would not solve the issue. In response to a question on whether Covax would support a patent waiver, she said, \u201cevery effort must be taken to expand both the number of vaccine producers and their geographical distribution.\u201d However, she added, \u201cthe great challenge is that it may not lead to more doses and could lead to fewer, as it ignores the fact that vaccine production involves incredibly complex manufacturing processes which requires deep knowledge and experience. For example, the vaccine company Moderna announced in 2020 that it would\u00a0not enforce any infringements on its patents<\/a>\u00a0made by anyone making vaccines to combat the pandemic. Nobody has since come forward to take advantage.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The spokesperson did not explain how patent waivers could lead to fewer vaccines. African manufacturers are mainly looking to make AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, neither of which rely on the more difficult to reproduce mRNA technology. Covax, the spokesperson said, would be taking the approach described by WTO\u2019s director general Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as a \u201cthird way” <\/a>and work towards an access to technology and knowledge transfer.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Covax has been a failure, according to campaigners. It is 190 million doses short of its target, the WHO reports. \u201cIt had billions in public money it could have used as leverage to ensure that the vaccine science was shared so production was scaled up,\u201d said Marriott. \u201cIt instead tried to compete in a very difficult market to secure vaccine supplies in competition with rich nations,\u201d she added.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Gates Foundation did not answer questions regarding its investment in CureVac but instead directed Sahelien.com to its press release on a \u201cnarrow waiver\u201d support.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu leaves after receiving his coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination in Cape Town, South Africa, May 17, 2021. REUTERS\/Mike Hutchings<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cIt should\u2019ve already been adopted\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Brussels has pledged 1 billion euros towards vaccine production in Africa, including supporting the establishment of a continent-wide drug regulator, the African Medicines Agency, that was proposed in 2014 but failed to materialize.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It broadly aligns with an African Union goal set in April for up to 60 percent of routine vaccines to be supplied from within the continent by 2040. Just one percent is currently produced in Africa.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Malpani noted the patent waiver was proposed last year and is still being discussed. \u201cIt should\u2019ve already been adopted,\u201d he said. In the United Kingdom, where almost 80 percent of adults are vaccinated, Boris Johnson is facing calls to reconsider his opposition to the patent waiver.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

To fight future pandemics, every region needs the production know-how to be able to produce vaccines. Critics say wealthier nations can no longer continue to put barriers in the way of poorer countries. \u201cIntellectual property sits at the very heart of whether you want to reform a broken system or you simply want to profit off it,\u201d said Malpani. \u201cEither agree to it or at least agree not to stand in the way of it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

EDITOR’S CORRECTION: The first sentence has been corrected to “At the G7 summit” instead of “At the G7 countries”.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

UPDATE: The story has been updated to reflect the Covax spokesperson’s full comments on the Moderna vaccine.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nosmot Gbadamosi At the G7 summit last week in Cornwall, southwest England, Western countries announced a plan to vaccinate the rest of the world that will rely on donations from richer countries. G7 nations pledged 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses, but 11 billion are needed. Vaccine campaigners say the donations are insignificant. \u201cWe can\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16,19,20,65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economie","8":"category-politique","9":"category-societe","10":"category-technologies","11":"category-west-africa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6498"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6591,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions\/6591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahelien.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}