October 20, 2020: South Africa and India called on the World Trade Organisation on October 2, 2020, to waive intellectual property rules that could impeded access to treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 pandemic programs.
October 7, 2020: The Nation magazine has started the investigation of investments that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation may have in the pharmaceutical companies wanting to manufacture possible COVID-19 vaccines. The Gates Foundation is the key funder of Gavi The Vaccine Alliance and CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, as well as being a co-leader in the World Health Organisation’s COVAX Facility and Advanced Market Commitment funds.
October 6, 2020: India and South Africa have asked the World Trade Organisation on October 2, 2020, to waive some provisions in its TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement to make vaccines and treatment more accessible to low-income countries, reported Pharmalot.
September 28, 2020: Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison re-announced Australia’s A$80 million contribution to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) to the UN General Assembly on September 26.
August 27, 2020: Initial commitments by university-based vaccine developers and the World Health Organisation to provide COVID-19 vaccines to all manufacturers without paying high monopoly prices have been overwhelmed by the pharmaceutical industry’s absolute commitment to intellectual property rights, according to a report in Fortune Magazine.
August 18, 2020: The Guardian (UK) has reported a series of law firms advising clients to use Investor-State Dispute Settlement clauses in trade and investment agreements to “recover or prevent loss resulting from COVID-19-related government actions”.
August 14, 2020: A short but growing list of countries are now signing pre-order contracts with pharmaceutical manufacturers for possible COVID-19 vaccines, which could leave behind most of the world’s population in 2021.
Explainer
Vaccines and WTO trade rules (TRIPS)
July 17, 2020: Finance Ministers of the world's richest countries are meeting at the G20 on July 19 to discuss how to respond to the #Covid19 pandemic. Sixty-four countries spend more on debt repayments than healthcare.
The Covid-19 crisis could mean 500 million more people are pushed into poverty. In 2020 the group of 76 poorest countries are due to spend:
July 15, 2020: In an overwhelming vote on July 10, 2020, the European Parliament supported a World Health Organization initiative to create the Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), which would collect patent rights, regulatory test data, and other information that could be shared for developing drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics to combat Covid-19 and ensure they are accessible to all..