EU says No to patent-free vaccines for Africa

 EU countries blocked mention of waiving vaccine patents to fight the pandemic at a meeting in Africa, overshadowed by the Sudan coup.

There was a "need to conclude discussions on how the World Trade Organisation (WTO) can support the ramping up of manufacturing, the equitable distribution of Covid-19 related health products, and the transfer of technologies", 68 EU and African foreign ministers said in a joint communiqué on Wednesday (27 October) after talks in Kigali.

"We recognised, everybody does, that there is an unbearable vaccination gap that has to be closed ... between Africa and Europe," EU foreign-affairs chief Josep Borrell also told press.

And fixing the problem was "not only a moral duty", Borrell added, given scientific warnings that new Covid variants could develop in Africa, where just 5 percent of people have been inoculated, then bounce back to Europe.

But for its part, the African Union (AU) had wanted a higher level of ambition.

It had called for EU backing for "a targeted and time-limited Trips Waiver" on vaccines in earlier drafts of the communiqué, seen by EUobserver.

Trips stands for "trade-related aspects of intellectual-property rights".

EU states had also pencilled in support for measures "including ... trade-related aspects of intellectual property" in earlier drafts.

The Kigali meeting did see German firm BionNTech sign a memo with Rwanda to cash-in on the pandemic by building a vaccine-production plant in the country next year.

But all talk of patent waivers was cut from the final declaration.

"The EU urgently needs to change its approach to Covid-19 vaccines ... the EU must fulfil pledges for donations and support the Trips waiver," Caritas, a Roman Catholic charity group, said on Wednesday.

EU states with strong ties to pharmaceutical firms, such as Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands, had previously lobbied against a waiver, according to the Geneva-based medical charity Médecins sans frontières.

The AU had also wanted EU states to move toward approval of vaccine certificates for all jabs, including an Indian one, cleared by the World Health Organisation.

But the EU agreed only to support for "ongoing efforts" for "reciprocal recognition".

https://euobserver.com/world/153371