Renewed push by Professor Susan Sell for Australia to back call to waiver COVID-19 vaccine patent

ANU Professor Susan Sell wants Australia to join a movement to force pharmaceutical companies to temporarily waive patent rights to coronavirus vaccines.

"Australia has an opportunity to negotiate agreements for a waiver for patent rights, but it's not enough. It should be made mandatory for firms to not only share methods to produce the vaccine, but also send someone into the field to teach hands-on development," she said.

READ MORE COVID-19 NEWS:

"Vaccines are complicated to produce. It's not like having a recipe where you can go off on your own and make it; you really need to have the chef in the kitchen."

In May this year, the United States government backed the push for the World Trade Organisation to waive vaccine patents.

India and South Africa started the movement in 2020.

Both nations are currently struggling to keep the COVID-19 delta variant under control.

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have rejected the call.

Pfizer has said a waiver could lead to harmful counterfeit vaccines and damage supply.

In a recent interview with WION World is One, trade minister Dan Tehan said the government is "prepared to look at a vaccine waiver".

"Our prime minister warmly welcomed the decision by the US Government to look at a waiver when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine," he said.

"We understand how fundamentally important it is to all countries that we can ramp up the manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines and make sure they're distributed right across the globe, because we're not safe until everyone is vaccinated."

Professor Sell said vaccination programs in some underdeveloped countries have stagnated because of a shortage of vaccine supply.

"Africa has one of the slowest vaccination rates of any continent because it doesn't have adequate access to the vaccine," Professor Sell said.

EXTRA COVID NEWS:

"This is a pattern we are also seeing for low-income countries that can't get the vaccine because rich nations have bought more supplies than they need. The hoarders should donate vaccines immediately to low-income countries ravaged by the delta variant."

Professor Sell said the world needed to be fully vaccinated quickly, as Covid mutations are getting stronger.

"It is time these major pharmaceutical companies put human lives before profit," she said.