'Allowing huge numbers of people in low- and middle-income countries to remain unvaccinated is a reckless approach to public health.'
Several new variants and millions of coronavirus-related deaths later, the patent waiver remains bottled up at the WTO with no breakthrough in sight. The Biden administration
"By ignoring the demands of low and middle-income countries and stifling global vaccine production with arbitrary intellectual property rules," she added,"the government risks prolonging the pandemic and endangering countless lives."We write to you as scientists, academics, and public health experts concerned about the emergence of the Omicron variant and the threat that future variants may pose to public health, the NHS, and the U.K.'s vaccination programme.
Allowing huge numbers of people in low- and middle-income countries to remain unvaccinated is a reckless approach to public health that creates conditions where new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern are more likely to develop. Indeed, the Omicron variant was first identified in Botswana and South Africa, on a continent in which fewer than one in ten are fully vaccinated.
We call on the U.K. government to support the temporary waiver of intellectual property rules under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement for Covid-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments at the World Trade Organization to scale up and diversify production of the tools needed to end this pandemic.
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