China supports India’s and SA’s proposal for IP waiver of Covid-19 vaccines

China extended its hands in favor of India and South Africa's proposal for a temporary waiver of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for coronavirus vaccines with the aim of providing fair vaccine access to everyone. "China fully understands and is supportive of the developing world's demand for an intellectual property rights waiver for COVID-19 vaccines," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

"This would be in line with the idea that COVID-19 vaccines are a "global public good", and part and parcel of (China's) efforts to build a global community of health for all," the South China Morning Post quoted him as saying. US trade Representative Katherine Tai virtually also met earlier this week with World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to have a discussion for increasing vaccine production and the TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 vaccines for the pandemic.

According to a readout from her office, Tai had explained the Biden-Harris administration's green signal for extending their support for the waiver of intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines and also explained that this act fits the United States’ comprehensive effort to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution all around the world. The TRIPS is working on this proposal of waiver with one objective i.e., to increase global vaccine production so as to overcome the challenge of vaccinating even the poorest of the poor nations and save millions of lives.

It was in October last year when India and South Africa, along with 57 other members of WTO came forward with a proposal to waive off certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement for the purpose of prevention, containment, and treatment of this deadly and scary coronavirus. However, the WTO agreement on TRIPS acts as a comprehensive multilateral agreement entered on intellectual property. It is good news for every nation worldwide that such a proposal is getting support from several big nations as well. This will undoubtedly help even those nations to save their citizens who are struggling financially.