Covid-19 roundup: White House push­es for IP waiv­er sup­port to WTO; Rare nerve dis­or­der list­ed as As­traZeneca side ef­fect in UK

In the mid­dle of a push to pro­duce more vac­cines for low­er- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s ad­min­is­tra­tion is call­ing on the mem­bers of the World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion to sup­port an in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty waiv­er for Covid-19 vac­cines.

This comes a year af­ter South Africa and In­dia in­tro­duced pro­pos­als to tem­porar­i­ly waive patent rights. Ne­go­ti­a­tions have led to lit­tle progress. More than 100 coun­tries have thrown sup­port be­hind the waiv­er, but the EU and an­oth­er sev­en coun­tries are op­posed. WTO Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Ngozi Okon­jo-Iweala said last week that ne­go­ti­a­tions were stuck.

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