Devex CheckUp: Could an IP waiver have averted millions of deaths?

A year has passed since India and South Africa submitted a proposal to the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 products. But despite the support of over 100 countries, including the United States, the proposal has yet to be adopted.

COVID-19 has caused 3.5 million deaths since the waiver was put forward at the WTO. We wondered: What might have happened if the proposal had been quickly approved?

• Some experts say additional investments — such as in the workforce — would still be needed in addition to IP. But others argue there are ways to address those. There are many potential manufacturing plants that can be retrofitted to produce COVID-19 vaccines, and there’s a retired corps of engineers globally that could provide expertise in the interim, Andrew Green reports.

• If facilities were in place, the production process for a messenger RNA vaccine could begin within three or four months, says Suhaib Siddiqi, former director of chemistry at Moderna. With a $127 million investment and some expansion, existing facilities for injectable medicines could be producing up to 100 million mRNA vaccine doses in a 10-month period, according to modeling by Médecins Sans Frontières and Imperial College London.

• These timelines are contingent on vaccine developers' willingness to share technology. But experts say there are ways to get companies to cooperate, such as tax breaks. Had steps been taken a year ago, “a lot of countries would be in a better spot,” Rachel Thrasher, a trade expert at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, tells Andrew.

• But persistent calls to increase local manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa have started to bear fruit. Moderna says it will build an mRNA vaccine manufacturing plant in the continent.

Read more: Where are we on COVID-19 after a year of TRIPS waiver negotiations? 

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We heard you

Last week, we asked: What do you think will help improve WHO’s response to sexual abuse?

Dr. Abdul Latif Bhuiya from Bangladesh said, “In my opinion, there must be written punishments [outlined] in the appointment letters related to sexual crimes ... before [the] appointment of local [aid] workers and [WHO should] apply those punishments accordingly if found guilty.”

+ ICYMI: Women's rights advocates call for changes after WHO sex abuse in DRC

What lies ahead 

Just three years after its 2017 launch, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention was forced to run a massive response to the COVID-19 pandemic. African experts say the organization has fulfilled its purpose to this point. But amid a potential leadership change, Africa CDC is now expected to undergo its first major structural transition, Sara Jerving reports.

Devex Pro: How a continental approach helped Africa’s pandemic response

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It’s a mystery

Diagnostics play a crucial role in identifying both diseases and courses of treatment. But they have not received the same level of attention as vaccines and medicines. In fact, diagnostics were not mentioned as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Lancet Commission on Diagnostics hopes an international diagnostics alliance will help raise their profile, commissioners tell Jenny.

Youths versus drones

With the help of its young people, Kenya is aiming to reduce malaria transmission through larvicides, or insecticides targeting larval-stage mosquitoes. Soon, the country will also be using drones for this purpose, but some communities fear the technology may deprive young men and women of their jobs, Anthony Langat reports for Devex.

+ ICYMI: ‘An historic day’: Malaria vaccine receives WHO seal of approval

One big number

That’s the current number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births globally — far behind the Sustainable Development Goal 3.1 target of less than 70 per 100,000.

Read more: WHO, UNFPA launch new 2025 targets to reduce maternal deaths

WHO for the Nobel Peace Prize?

The World Health Organization is once again rumored to be among the top contenders for the Nobel Peace Prize this year, with some in the aid community welcoming the prospect.

Max Lawson, the head of inequality policy at Oxfam International, writes to Jenny that “The WHO under Dr. Tedros [Adhanom Ghebreyesus] has been amazing in this pandemic” for calling out the “appalling behaviour” of high-income countries and big pharmaceutical companies.

Fifa Rahman, a civil society representative for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, also tweeted that the U.N. agency “deserves the Peace Prize” for being a “beacon of hope during COVID, against those who are causing vaccine inequity, against those who oppose the … [intellectual property] waiver.”

What we’re reading

Residents of a rural Guatemalan village have attacked nurses and destroyed 50 COVID-19 vaccine doses. [BBC]

AstraZeneca has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency authorization for its COVID-19 antibody treatment. [The New York Times]

The Philippine government is eyeing $900 million in loans to buy COVID-19 booster shots for 2022. [Philippine Daily Inquirer]