[e-drug] India / South Africa proposal for WTO waiver from IP protections for COVID-19-related medical technologies: Twitter Storm, December 8 TOMORROW

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E-DRUG: India/South Africa proposal for WTO waiver from IP protections for COVID-19-related medical technologies: Twitter Storm, December 8 TOMORROW
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Dear All,

As many of you know that India and South Africa made a formal request to
the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a waiver on certain provisions of
the WTO TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights)
Agreement on 2 October to allow all countries to choose to neither grant
nor enforce patents and other intellectual property (IP) related to
COVID-19 drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other technologies for the
duration of the pandemic, until global herd immunity is achieved.
[see also http://lists.healthnet.org/archive/html/e-drug/2020-11/msg00018.html\]

If approved, this waiver could be a real game changer to leverage easier
collaboration and production of COVID-19 tools globally, and also to
provide governments with the necessary legal basis to ensure access for
their population during the pandemic. To know more about this waiver and
why it can be a game changer, read this technical brief
<https://msfaccess.org/india-and-south-africa-proposal-wto-waiver-ip-protections-covid-19-related-medical-technologies&gt;

So far, nearly 100 countries have welcomed and shown support overall. But
the waiver proposal is not being supported by multiple wealthy
nations, including the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Australia,
Norway, Switzerland and the European Union.

Ahead of the General Council meeting at WTO (10 Dec), we are launching a
twitter storm to mobilize the global health movement, online audiences,
followers and civil society to tweet a message simultaneously to create
pressure on governments that have blocked the TRIPS waiver proposal at the
WTO. We would like you all to join us in this initiative.

Please join this twitter storm on December 8, [9AM ET/3PM CET/ 7:30PM
IST] with your organizational accounts as well as private ones. You can
find all details, twitter handles, as well as graphics and tweets here:
https://msfaccess.org/nocovidmonopolies-twitter-storm-activist-toolkit

Thanks in advance for your support. Please feel free to get back to us
Lara.Dovifat@berlin.msf.org/shailly.gupta@msf.org
in case you have any questions.

Regards

Shailly

Shailly Gupta
MSF Access Campaign
Geneva
+41-79 203 13 02
shailly.gupta@msf.org