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 The draft document, seen by Reuters, lists commitments of G20
nations and other countries and is to be adopted on Friday at a
Global Health Summit in Rome, one of this year's major events to
coordinate global actions against the pandemic.
The draft, which is still subject to changes, is the result of a
compromise among experts from G20 nations which remain divided over
the waiving of intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines.
The Biden administration earlier in May joined India, South Africa
and many other developing countries in calling for a temporary
waiver of patents for COVID-19 vaccines, in the hope that it would
boost production and allow a fairer distribution of shots across the
world.
But the European Union and other vaccine-making countries have
raised doubts, saying that the removal of U.S. export restrictions
on vaccine raw materials, the transfer of know-how and voluntary
cooperation among vaccine makers would ensure a much quicker ramping
up of global production.
The health summit's draft conclusions reflect these differing views
and make no mention of patent waivers.
G20 leaders are to commit instead to "patent-pooling" which is a
less radical measure to encourage the sharing of patents. It is
still an "unfriendly" move for pharmaceutical companies, an industry
expert said, but far less extreme than a patent waiver.
Under a patent pool, drugmakers decide voluntarily to share licences
for the manufacturing of their products in poorer nations. Pools
have for instance been used to ease access to HIV drugs in Africa.
The summit's conclusions stress that G20 leaders commit to promoting
"voluntary licensing, technology and knowledge transfer, and
patent-pooling".
BLOW TO WHO?
The conclusions may also deal a blow to the WHO and its scheme to
accelerate the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests
across the world.
Global leaders reaffirm their support for the scheme, known as ACT
Accelerator, but refrain from clearly committing to fully funding
it. They "underline the necessity to close its funding gap with fair
burden sharing", the draft document reads, and they call for the
scheme's "strategic review".
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This represents a major watering down of the
initial draft in which leaders explicitly
committed for the first time to "fair and full
financing" of the scheme.
The original draft, also seen by Reuters, was
more influenced by the European Commission which
is one of the hosts of the summit, together with
the Italian government which holds the G20
presidency this year.
A Commission spokesman declined to comment.
The WHO scheme was launched in April 2020 and is
still vastly underfunded. Of the over $34
billion it has been seeking to develop, procure
and distribute anti-COVID vaccines and drugs
across the world, it is still $19 billion short.
COVAX, which is the pillar of the scheme focused
on vaccines, should be used to share vaccines,
the draft document says. COVAX was initially
conceived to buy shots for poorer nations, but
wealthier states' decisions to prioritise their
own populations have contributed to a shortage
in less developed countries even for healthcare
workers and the most vulnerable.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on
Monday the world had reached a situation of
"vaccine apartheid".
"The big problem is a lack of sharing. So the
solution is more sharing," he told a virtual
Paris Peace Forum event.
The new version of the summit conclusions also
says that the WHO should be "appropriately,
sustainably and predictably funded" to prevent
and react to future health emergencies.
The original draft was much more ambitious and
urged "a fully funded, independent and
effective" WHO.
The current funding system of the WHO has been
seen as a drag on the U.N. agency, which relies
on regular top-ups from the very countries that
it monitors on health preparedness.
 A large part of its funding is also coming from
private and public actors who decide how the
money they give should be spent, reducing WHO's
independence.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio;
Editing by Nick Macfie)
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