After months of pushing for a blanket, time-bound, waiver on intellectual property protections to effectively address the pandemic, South Africa and India joined by more than 60 co-sponsors of the TRIPS Waiver proposal, finally managed to get the WTO membership to agree to talk text.

Members will convene at an informal meeting on 17 June to assess how they can move forward ahead of General Council meeting in July.

Notably, UK, Switzerland, EU, Korea, remain opposed to the waiver proposal.

As many as 48 delegations took the floor this week, during the TRIPS Council formal meeting.

Image credit: Photo by Sandeep Ket from Pexels

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