Now that the powerful nation like US has taken the initiative to waive the patent on vaccines its incumbent on multilateral arbitrator like WTO to ratify at the earliest without wasting even a single day. People are dying every minute all across the world while the situation is dire in India. It will be criminal negligence that these are delayed further. Already so much time is wasted, and if you recall this blogger had republished a letter by concerned group calling on the WTO to waive the patent. That was 21days back (504 hours back) since then hundreds and thousands of people have died and many are in serious conditions. Also, as the virus spreads its mutation rate will increase and chance of dangerous variants too will increase which may make the vaccine ineffective. So time is of much importance. There is too much at stake. PLEASE ACT IMMEDIATELY
Yes millions of dollars and skilled time was spent on research for the vaccine. It is but natural that these must be compensated. Also considering that most nations did not even invest adequately on crucial health infrastructure and were generally lackadaisical and incompetent, and so to now ask for help for sake of humanity is rather hypocritical. But these are extraordinary times and precedence set by multilateral cooperation in vaccine manufacturing must be consolidated further to fight the virus. Distinction of geography should not matter when the threat is on humanity. This template needs to be nurtured as the future threats needs multilateral cooperation and sharing of information. It is unfortunate that UN is not really living up to its role at this crucial juncture.
