March 11 will mark one year since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 a pandemic, with global impact and requiring global response. However, notwithstanding rhetoric around a shared experience and the need for collective mobilization, we barely see the global solidarity and commitment necessary to address this pandemic. With regard to COVID-19 treatments and health technologies, including vaccines, wealthy countries have taken nationalistic approaches, securing priority access and hoarding vaccines for their own populations at the expense of the health of everyone.

Only global solidarity can meet the current challenge–putting human rights and people’s health and lives at the center of the response. We call on our governments to join with South Africa, India and over 100 other countries in supporting the TRIPS waiver proposal currently before the WTO. The proposal calls for the temporary suspension of the patent system for Covid-19 products until worldwide immunity is achieved. This proposal would give all countries in the world the ability to decide whether to ignore some of the provisions of intellectual property law set out in the TRIPS Agreement, to save lives without fear of sanctions. Importantly, it would allow for the necessary expansion and diversification in vaccine supply, allowing manufacturers worldwide to ramp up vaccine production.  

The possibility of such a waiver–first urged by public-interest civil society groups seeking universal access to life-saving HIV-AIDS treatment and validated by the 2001 Doha Declaration–called for the suspension of WTO patent rules (the TRIPS agreement) in the face of public health emergencies. A pandemic–or as WHO’s International Health Regulations define it: a public health emergency of international concern–is precisely the kind of situation that demands the exercise of such a waiver.

COVID-19 vaccine development has required the investment of billions in public funds as well as the contributions of volunteers around the world–in the global north and south–who participated in clinical trials to ensure their safety and efficacy. Given this collective effort, COVID-19 vaccines should be a global public good. However, governments in high-income countries–even though they subsidized the research–have prioritized the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies, protecting their intellectual property (IP) and profits over the health and lives of the population.