Governments Must Break Big Pharma-WTO Stranglehold on Access to Medicine: A Global Call to Action

In June 2022, the World Trade Organization (WTO) concludes its most significant decision-making meeting since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), without agreement to temporarily waive WTO intellectual property rules restricting the production and supply of COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.

The temporarily waiver has been demanded by the vast majority of the world’s countries and by public health experts, generic medicine manufacturers, human rights advocates, faith leaders, community groups, and many more. WFPHA has supported the demand by sending an open letter to the WTO, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Secretary-General of the United Nations (SG-UN), joining an urgent call to governments, and urging the WTO to do everything in its power to achieve agreement to the temporarily waiver.

In response to the ongoing failure to adopt the temporary waiver, WFPHA joins civil society organizations around the globe to call on governments to take actions to ensure everyone has access to the COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics necessary to save lives and end the pandemic.