Act on Covid-19 Vaccine Intellectual Property Rights - SADC

Members of the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) Parliament have called for action on Covid-19 vaccine intellectual property rights by building the region's capacity to produce medicines and to ensure that citizens benefit from the region's vast medicinal plant resources. The main challenge with intellectual property rights and access to medicines in sub-Saharan Africa is the gap between the huge disease burden and the slow uptake of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) flexibilities that are freely available to the countries because of "structural and technical factors," said Nyasha Chingore, programmes lead at the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. While the U.S., UK and Canada have actively blocked a patent-waiver proposal intended to increase the global production of Covid-19 vaccines, White House officials stated that the U.S. may reverse its position, though no decision has yet been made.

As of April 29, 2021, the continent hass recorded 4,532,203 cases of Covid-19 of which 121,141 proved fatal and 4,073,969. The number of vaccinations to date total 12,216,007.

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