Public Hearings on a Pandemic Agreement Open Floodgates of Interest
An impressive range of stakeholders made their interests and concerns known at the public hearings this week conducted by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body set up to establish a new pandemic agreement.
From feisty civil society activists to hard-as-knuckles lobbyists; from social justice champions to focused medical products manufacturers; from professors at American universities to healthcare workers; from representatives of the families of the deceased to wildlife experts; from anesthesiologists to anthropologists; from human rights scholars to teachers’ unions. These disparate group made forceful, incisive statements on what the pandemic meant to them, and how any new rules must address future health emergencies.
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WTO DG To Take Compromise Text on TRIPS Waiver to the Wider Membership
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is expected to take the compromise text on the TRIPS Waiver to the wider WTO membership, sources told Geneva Health Files this week. It is learned that some members of the Quad (the US, the EU, India and South Africa) have not signed off on the text.
The leaked compromise text between the four members of the Quad group has struggled to get endorsement and ownership from the US, India and South Africa. It is understood it is only the European Union, that has so far lent support to the current version of the compromise text on the TRIPS waiver proposal. (The current text resembles EU’s original proposal on clarifying rules around compulsory licensing)
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