After three years of witnessing inequitable access to medicines and vaccines and policy failures to address COVID-19, there’s finally some hope: The pandemic accord zero draft, produced by an intergovernmental negotiating body established by the World Health Assembly, lays out support for intellectual property waivers, as well as transparency and conditions to ensure global access to publicly funded medical products.
But while advocates are celebrating the win, implementation and compliance will be key.
The draft proposes that the World Health Organization will have access to 20% of the world’s pandemic response products such as diagnostics, vaccines, personal protective equipment, and therapeutics “to enable equitable distribution.” Half of that should be in the form of donations and the other half offered at an affordable price to WHO.
About the authors
Amruta Byatnalamrutabyatnal
Amruta Byatnal is a Senior Editor at Devex where she edits coverage on global development, humanitarian crises and international aid. She writes Devex CheckUp, a weekly newsletter on the latest developments in global health. Previously, she worked for News Deeply in the United States, and The Hindu in India. She is a graduate of Cornell University where she studied international development. She is currently based in New Delhi.
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
