<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><div class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><h3 class="">What you can do</h3><p class="">Over 200 organizations from three continents
and more than 40 countries across the Global South have written to the
European Commission and leaders of rich countries, including the United
States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the
Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Japan, and Australia urging them
to unconditionally support the proposal.</p><p class="">Join the action on <strong class="">Tuesday 16 February</strong>
to retweet the common set of Tweets, which includes handles of the
blocking country and handles of our allies to amplify the voices of
civil society across the world. See the <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nOfGBc97KAYZruyIbqX6Ne_gEwF_iSpZWC46DcN9m_0/edit?usp=sharing" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">full social media kit</a> here.</p><p class="">Follow <a href="https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/dCnaCMjpXUD7jYH1FPAx" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class=""><strong class="">@PSIglobalunion</strong></a>, <a href="https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/uJvJCKOnGuP6LkTA2RR-" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class=""><strong class="">@3rdworldnetwork</strong></a> and <a href="https://protect-eu.mimecast.com/s/2LMjCLgoGsV7L2TjMOHv" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class=""><strong class="">@PHMglobal</strong></a> and retweet when the action begins - #NoCovidMonopolies.</p><div class=""><p class="">The pandemic has demanded extraordinary sacrifices from workers
around the world. These political leaders are risking the lives of
millions of workers simply to appease Big Pharma. These rules ensure big
pharma has a monopoly over the production and supply, and can
artificially limit supply and dictate high prices, which will consume
public finances required for a healthy recovery. The only responsible
thing to do is to make essential COVID-19 medical products especially
vaccines accessible. We need the TRIPS waiver for this,” said Rosa
Pavanelli, General Secretary of Public Services International, a global
union federation representing 30 million workers across the world,
including healthcare workers.</p><p class="">The Director-General of the World
Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom has stressed the need for
massive scale-up in production and sharing of technology and data to
ensure global equitable access. Intellectual property rules allow
pharmaceutical companies to prevent other manufacturers from producing
COVID-19 vaccines and medicines, impeding the scale up of much needed
production and artificially limiting competition and creating supply
constraints.</p><p class="">“It makes little sense that the United States, the
European Union, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia,
are blocking the proposal at the World Trade Organization that would
allow them, and the rest of the world, to get more of the vaccines and
treatments we all need,” says T Sundaraman, Global Coordinator of the
People’s Health Movement, the international network of grassroots health
organisations and practitioners active in more than 80 countries.
“Access to the COVID-19 medical products is critical to control the
pandemic because nobody is safe until everybody is safe,” he stresses.</p><p class="">Rich
countries have argued that they are facilitating access by supporting
the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility, but this mechanism
itself is struggling to obtain sufficient amounts to vaccinate even
just 3% of the population of low and middle-income countries. This
meagre level of vaccination is simply not enough to break the chain of
transmission. Current vaccine shortages in developing and least
developed countries expose the crisis of limited supply — currently
mostly in the hands of rich countries — and the need to diversify and
expand the manufacturing of vaccines and therapeutics.</p><p class="">“Developed
countries by blocking the adoption of the waiver proposal at the WTO are
failing in their human rights obligations”, says Chee Yoke Ling,
Executive Director of the Third World Network, an international policy
research and advocacy organisation. “COVID-19 medical products
especially vaccines and medicines are the results of substantial public
investments and contributions of people who participated in clinical
trials — the riskiest part of product development — and should be
treated as global public goods, and any intellectual property
requirements on them should be automatically waived.”</p><p class="">A series of WTO meetings are in the pipeline to discuss and hopefully finalise the wording of the waiver.</p><p class="">The <a href="https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/IP/C/W669.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">TRIPS waiver</a> has the support of the vast majority of developing countries and is also supported by the <a href="https://twitter.com/drtedros/status/1317449471727407104?s=24" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">World Health Organization</a>, <a href="https://publicservices.international/campaigns/psi-calls-for-a-waiver-of-intellectual-property-rights-on-covid-19-medical-products?id=11380&lang=en#_ftn7" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">UN Human Rights Experts</a>, <a href="https://publicservices.international/campaigns/psi-calls-for-a-waiver-of-intellectual-property-rights-on-covid-19-medical-products?id=11380&lang=en#en" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">UNITAID</a>, <a href="https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2020/october/20201015_waiver-obligations-trips-agreement-covid19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">UNAIDS</a>.
The opposition by a few high income countries is undermining global
efforts to control COVID-19 and endangering the lives of billions of
people.</p><p class="">The <a href="https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/IP/C/W669.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">Covid-19 waiver</a> is supported by the <a href="https://twitter.com/drtedros/status/1317449471727407104?s=24" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">World Health Organization</a>, <a href="https://publicservices.international/campaigns/psi-calls-for-a-waiver-of-intellectual-property-rights-on-covid-19-medical-products?id=11380&lang=en#_ftn7" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">UN Human Rights Experts</a>, <a href="https://publicservices.international/campaigns/psi-calls-for-a-waiver-of-intellectual-property-rights-on-covid-19-medical-products?id=11380&lang=en#en" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">UNITAID</a> and <a href="https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2020/october/20201015_waiver-obligations-trips-agreement-covid19" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" class="">UNAIDS</a>.</p><div class=""><i class=""><b class="">[Letter to US President Biden attached]</b></i></div></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">
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