A lone frontline nurse from Liberia has traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, urging governments to support patent exemptions on COVID-19 vaccines and medical products, a proposal initially made by India and South Africa was.
George Poe Williams has launched an unusual protest for pharma executives in the form of a “round of applause”, a satirical reversal of global applause for frontline workers. Big Pharma is not in favor of patent exemption and has instead pushed for cross-country collaboration.
“The action (patent waiver) should have been taken long ago,” Williams told business LineSpeaking from Davos, referring to the initial proposal made in October 2020. “It is making our job difficult. Health workers are overworked and there is a shortage of supplies. Health workers have died and this should never have happened,” said Williams, who is general secretary of Liberia’s national health workers union. He began his “round of applause” protest in front of the tightly secured perimeter of the Forum.
Referring to the text of the waiver motion, which is also being discussed during his protest, Williams called for the original text of the motion to be brought back. He said that the current version is not getting support from countries due to its limited scope and restrictive norms. A note from the global trade union federation Public Services International said the resolution could be passed at the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference in mid-June if Germany, the European Commission, the UK and Switzerland were to change their positions.
Williams’ home country is one of over a hundred countries supporting intellectual property (IP) exemptions at the World Trade Organization (WTO), along with support from international agencies including the World Health Organization, Médecins Sans Frontires and PSI. William said a handful of governments are still holding off on passing on the exemption.
Responding to the pharmaceutical industry’s argument that the world has an adequate supply of COVID-19 vaccines, Willem said, “I am a nurse and I go through what happened at the bed-side. Only a third of us are vaccinated,” he said.
“We don’t want charity, we want solidarity,” he said, adding that a patent exemption would have allowed countries with the ability to do so at a lower cost. PSI alleged that pharmaceutical companies have made more than $34 billion in profits during the pandemic, due to the monopoly of vaccines.
William called on those who lost their loved ones during the pandemic to join the call for patent waivers as he moves to stage his protest at the now-on-going World Health Assembly in Geneva, followed by a WTO meeting in weeks is going to happen in
Published on
25 May 2022