BRICS nations support patent waiver for Covid vaccines

New Delhi: BRICS foreign ministers came together in a meeting on Tuesday to back talks at WTO for a global vaccine patent waiver, a proposal India and South Africa have been raising for ramping up Covid-19 vaccine production.

The virtual meeting chaired by external affairs minister S Jaishankar, according to a joint statement, called for supporting ongoing consideration at WTO on a Covid-19 vaccine Intellectual Property Rights waiver and the use of “flexibilities” of the TRIPS agreement and the Doha Declaration on TRIPS agreement and public health.

The ministers also called for timely establishment and operationalisation of the BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Center, the government said in a statement. They reiterated the need for sharing of vaccine doses, transfer of technology, development of local production capacities and supply chains for medical products, promotion of price transparency and called for “exercise of due restraint in the implementation of measures that could hinder the flow of vaccines, health products and essential inputs”.

Jaishankar said in the meeting that BRICS was striving for an international system based on international law and the UN Charter, that recognises the sovereign equality of all states, and respects “their territorial integrity while displaying mutual respect for interests and concerns of all”. His Chinese and Russian counterparts, Wang Yi and Sergey Lavrov respectively, pledged more support and assistance for India, as Wang said, at any time to deal with the pandemic.

Importantly for India, the ministers expressed strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations “whenever, wherever and by whomsoever committed”.