WTO members have missed the December 17 deadline to reach a decision on the extension of temporary TRIPS waiver to Covid-19 related therapeutics and diagnostics as a number of developed nations continue to oppose the proposed move.

The deadline has now been officially extended, but there is no fresh target that has been agreed to yet, the Geneva-based officials told businessline. This is due to disagreement over the state of play of discussions between developed members, including the US, the EU and the UK, that are delaying the decision on waiver extension, and the developing country grouping led by India and South Africa, that are pushing for it.

“Differences between some developed members and developing countries were so stark that  members failed to adopt even a factual report about discussions on the extension issue,” the official said.

A paragraph that developing and LDC members wanted to be included in the report, that would acknowledge the crucial role played by the WHO in the global fight against Covid-19 and assert that WTO will benefit from the WHO’s expertise and advice, was also rejected by some developed countries, the official added.

The initial draft factual report, which gave an account of how discussions unfolded over the last few months, and gave time till June 30, 2023 to the TRIPS Council to continue addressing the issue and report back to the General Council, was set aside due to disagreement over the content.

Now, the report to be circulated as a formal document and presented to the General Council next week by the TRIPS Council chair will only recommend that the deadline be extended.

The December 17 deadline for reaching a decision on extending temporary TRIPS waiver to Covid-19 related therapeutics and diagnostics was taken at the WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) in Geneva in June 2022. This was part of a larger decision taken at the Ministerial, allowing a targeted waiver of TRIPS provisions for Covid-19 vaccines giving members a right to override patents and have greater scope to take direct action to diversify production.

Developing nations pushing for the waiver, including South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Egypt and Tanzania (on behalf of the African Group) had sought changes in the draft report, discussed for over four hours on December 15, and insisted  their efforts to abide by the Ministerial mandate of taking a decision on the extension be added in the report.

They also said that it should be very clearly stated that discussions in the TRIPS Council will continue to decide on the extension to cover therapeutics and diagnostics by the first General Council in 2023 and there should not be any ambiguity there.

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