KENYA: Jesuits in Africa Reinforce Appeal for Waiver from Certain Intellectual Property Barriers to Covid-19 Vaccine
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
The leadership of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Africa have echoed concern raised by some member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a waiver from certain Intellectual Property (IP) barriers to help scale up access to Covid-19 medical tools across the globe.
“We, the Jesuit Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar, are writing to urge the German government to support the WTO proposal from South Africa and India for a “Waiver from certain provisions of the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of Covid-19,” reads an excerpt of the letter by the Jesuits Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM).
In a letter signed by the JCAM President Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, the Jesuit Major Superiors highlight that they have added their voice to that of Pope Francis “who affirmed the need to make Covid-19 vaccines available and accessible to all,” saying, “If there is the possibility of treating a disease with a drug, this should be available to everyone, otherwise an injustice is created.”
Addressing the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Kenya, Mr. Annett Günther in their letter dated Monday, February, 22, the Jesuits leadership in Africa and the surrounding Islands have joined “over 100 countries, 400 civil society organisations globally and international organizations that have already supported the proposal.”
“Madam Ambassador, we are concerned that Germany did not strongly support the waiver proposal when it was first raised at the WTO in October 2020. With utmost respect, Germany and the EU’s opposition to the waiver is simply indefensible. It is contributing to the deepening global crisis of inequality,” the Major Superiors underscored adding, “The impact of the pandemic among the world’s poor and vulnerable communities especially in the global south have been profound.”
The Jesuits Superiors on the continent decry that “The longer the virus circulates in unprotected populations, the higher the probability of more transmissible mutations to occur, which obviously will affect all countries, including those opposing the waiver proposal.”
They noted that Covid-19 crisis continues to escalate especially in Africa where “many countries have recorded new strains of the disease” hence contributing to an increase in the number of both cases and deaths.
The JCAM members further noted that “The African Development Bank has warned that the Covid-19 crisis “could move the continent further from the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty.”
The Jesuit leadership also raise their concern about the need for “rapid scale-up of vaccine production.”
“In principle, intellectual property should not stand in the way of urgent public health needs. Yet in practice, in the present circumstances, the real bottleneck today is financing to scale up production capacity and distribution of vaccines,” JCAM highlighted adding that “Nations should also focus their attention on the issue of urgent multilateral financing.”
“We ask Germany and the G20 to call for the IMF (International Monetary Fund) to issue a new round of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) that would be used to fund rapid scale-up of vaccine production and distribution to developing countries.”
They explained further, “These funds could be mobilized in innovative ways to increase the financing capacity for the COVAX facility,” a Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
The JCAM leadership wrote a similar letter to the President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden.
