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Covid-19 vaccine production line in Poce-sur-Cisse, France. Photo: AFP/VNA

The Directors-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Word Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) met recently to map out further collaboration to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and pressing global challenges at the intersection of public health, intellectual property and trade.

“We pledged to bring the full extent of the expertise and resources of our respective institutions to bear in ending the Covid-19 pandemic and improving the health and well-being of all people, everywhere around the globe,” they said.

According to the WHO, the Directors-General underscored their commitment to universal, equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other health technologies – a commitment anchored in the understanding that this is an urgent moral imperative in need of immediate practical action.

In this spirit, they agreed to build further on their long-standing commitment to WHO-WIPO-WTO Trilateral Cooperation that aims to support and assist all countries as they seek to assess and implement sustainable and integrated solutions to public health challenges. Within this existing cooperative framework, they agreed to enhance and focus their support in the context of the pandemic through two specific initiatives.

WTO, WIPO and WHO will implement a joint platform for tripartite technical assistance to countries relating to their needs for Covid-19 medical technologies. Photo: AFP/VNA

First, the three agencies will collaborate in the organisation of practical, capacity-building workshops to enhance the flow of updated information on current developments in the pandemic and responses to achieve equitable access to Covid-19 health technologies.

The aim of these workshops is to strengthen the capacity of policymakers and experts in member governments to address the pandemic accordingly. The first workshop in the series will be a workshop on technology transfer and licensing, scheduled for September.

The workshop will help their members update their knowledge and understanding of how intellectual property, know-how and technology transfer work in actuality. This would be in the context of medical technologies and related products and services. This first workshop will be followed by others on related practical themes.

Secondly, they will implement a joint platform for tripartite technical assistance to countries relating to their needs for Covid-19 medical technologies, providing a one-stop shop that will make available the full range of expertise on access, IP and trade matters provided by their organisations, and other partners, in a coordinated and systematic manner.

WHO is calling for a patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines. Photo: AFP

The platform for technical assistance will, in particular, support countries to assess and prioritise unmet needs for Covid-19 vaccines, medicines and related technologies, and provide timely and tailored technical assistance in making full use of all available options to access vaccines, medicines and technologies, including through coordination between members facing similar challenges to facilitate collective responses.

These initiatives will also be underpinned by their joint efforts to collect and make accessible robust and inclusive data needed to guide an effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This will include a periodical update of the overview of Covid 19-related measures that are mapped in a key resource for trilateral cooperation, the WHO-WIPO-WTO publication 'Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade', published in 2020./.

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