DNA Special: How freedom from patent on vaccine will help in battle against COVID-19

Currently, there are more people than vaccines in this world and that is why some countries are facing a vaccine shortage in their fight against COVID-19. This problem can only be solved when every country in the world starts to produce vaccines. However, the main roadblock for this step is patent. Patent on vaccines is one of the main reasons why some countries are not able to produce their vaccine.

Seeing this bad situation around the world, India and South Africa had proposed something in the World Trade Organization, to which now the US have also agreed. The US has said that it is ready to temporarily suspend all patents related to the research and manufacture of the coronavirus vaccine. 

Apart from this, the European Union has also said that it is ready to discuss it. Britain has also agreed that it will consider making the vaccine patent-free and France is also in favor of it. Now one country which is against it is Germany. Germany's view is that the production of the vaccine cannot be increased by making it patent-free. That is, Germany has stood up in opposition to this proposal. The point to understand here is that WTO will need the support of all countries to pass the proposal of India and South Africa but so far it does not appear to be happening.

How does consent from the US benefit our country?

The companies that make vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna are from America itself. The US government was also involved in the research of Moderna's vaccine and Pfizer created its vaccine based on this research. In such a situation, if the US agrees to withdraw the patent from the vaccine, then the pressure will increase on other countries as well. Especially in those countries that are applying Pfizer and Moderna vaccine to their people. If the legal right to patent is lifted in the future, then pharma companies of all countries will be able to produce the vaccine. However, this is not so easy as first of all the member countries have to agree on this subject in the WTO. And even if the agreement is reached in some way, then the companies making the vaccine can approach the court on this issue. And in court, this case can get entangled for a long time. While the world needs a vaccine right now.

In such a situation, what can we do?

So, the answer is that the Central Government can only issue compulsory licenses to third-party companies for the manufacture of CoVaxin. But this cannot be the case with Covishield because Covishield has a patent with Oxford University. Serum Institute of India is the only one producing it.

This is the situation when there is a crisis of vaccine deficiency all over the world. At present, a total of 13 companies are producing vaccines all over the world and the total population of the world is 750 crores. If all people were given both doses of vaccine, then we would need 1500 crore doses of vaccine. But the problem is that there have been only 13.

If we look at it from the situation of India, the total population of our country is 135 crores. If all people are vaccinated in our country, then we will need 270 crore doses. While currently, only 2 companies are making vaccines, and these two companies make an average of 80 million doses every month. According to this, it will take about three years for these two companies to make vaccines for all people. 

Now, if the patent is removed from the vaccine, then only 13 companies making vaccines in the world can be in thousands. The same can happen in India. There are a total of 3000 Pharma companies in India but only two companies are making the vaccine.