NEW DELHI: The WTO General Council has discussed India’s call to hold a meeting of the Virtual Minister at the World Trade Organization’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including a patent neglect proposal.
India on December 23, 2021 sent a letter to the General Council seat to hold a meeting of the Virtual Minister for the WTO (World Trade Organization) response to Pandemics, including proposals to release certain provisions of travel agreements for Covid-19- vaccines related, therapeutic, and diagnostic.
On January 10, the Chair of the General Council of the Duta Dacio Castillo (Honduras) held a meeting to discuss the response of the World Trade Organization against Pandemic Covid-19, WTO said in a statement.
After the meeting, Castillo said he would continue to hold consultations with members with Indian proposals, which underlined “Urgency and the importance of achieving meaningful results.” The general WTO response to Covid-19 “remains an urgent priority for membership,” he said.
Director General of WTO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has called for an urgent action towards a comprehensive WTO on a pandemic response.
“More than two years have passed since the beginning of the pandemic.
The emergence of the omicron variant, which forces us to delay our twelfth minister’s conference, reminds us of the risk that allows most of the world to remain not vaccinated.” she says.
The WTO is a 164-member multilateral body that formulates the rules for the exports and imports of global and agreed to a dispute between two or more countries about problems related to trade.
Express disappointment because there is no progress on the journey (aspects related to trade in intellectual property rights) the proposed proposal to handle pandemics, India has called on this proposal into the proposed WTO response package.
In October 2020, India and South Africa submitted the first proposal, suggested neglecting for all WTO members about the implementation of certain provisions of travel agreements with respect to prevention, detention or treatment of Covid-19.
In May 2021, the revised proposal was submitted.
The journey came into force in January 1995.
It is a multilateral agreement on intellectual property rights (IP) such as copyright, industrial design, patent and information protection that is not disclosed or trade secrets.