Recently, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Board Meeting considered a proposal submitted by the government of South Africa and India. It proposed to exempt a part of the obligations of TRIPS in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the plan is to clarify the related regulations to ensure the production, innovation, procurement, and increase the production capacity of essential health technologies on the required scale.

The issue of affordable and equitable access to innovative health technologies has been the subject of a long-standing global debate on intellectual property, trade, and public health. The current COVID-19 has put this problem in the limelight because governments, even in the economically advanced countries, are struggling to meet the health needs of their populations. Patent exclusivities add to the cost of healthcare by allowing supra-competitive prices of protected technologies. The UN High-Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines is a great help in identifying and articulating the nature of the public policy problems faced by countries in response to COVID-19.

(Source: infojustice.org)