WHO supports India and South Africa’s venture to assure worldwide access to COVID-19 vaccines

• The WHO Solidarity Trial was held from March 22 to October 4.
• Intellectual property rights will be expedited to avert, review, and restrain the COVID-19 pandemic.

THDNewsDesk: The World Health Organization (WHO) has supported India and South Africa’s venture at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to assure worldwide access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, WHO director-general, tweeted: “@WHO welcomes South Africa’s and India’s recent proposal to @wto to ease international & intellectual property agreements on #COVID19 vaccines, treatments & tests in order to make the tools available to all who need them at an affordable cost.”

Ghebreyesus further added, “WHO launched the covid-19 Technology Access Pool (CTAP) in May, inviting countries to share data, knowledge and intellectual property on vital, life-saving health products in the fight against the coronavirus.” 

According to reports, South Africa and India have implored the World Trade Organization to relinquish some international agreements provisions. It will manage intellectual property rights to expedite forces to avert, review, and restrain the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure developing countries are not isolated.

The provisional results of ‘WHO Solidarity Trial’ show that four repurposed drugs for COVID-19 manifested small or no outcome on decreasing mortality, commencing of ventilation, and span of hospital stay. The drugs are-

• Remdesivir,
• Hydroxychloroquine,
• Lopinavir/ritonavir,
• Interferon regimens.

On Thursday, the provisional discovery from the trial of four drugs in 405 hospitals across 30 countries covering 11,266 adults was published on ‘medRxiv,’ a preprint server. The research is under revision for releasing it in a medical journal.

The research is essential as remdesivir has been approved for treating coronavirus patients in an initial stage of the illness as ‘investigational therapies.’ Though, remdesivir is used for restricted emergency purposes as per the Clinical Management Protocol for COVID-19 provided by the Union Health Ministry. The WHO Solidarity Trial was held from March 22 to October 4.

Source- https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/who-backs-india-and-south-africas-joint-proposal-to-ensure-universal-access-to-covid-19-vaccines