Affordable Covid-19 vaccines will test world's intellectual property regime

An intellectual property regime that is not flexible enough to manage the coronavirus crisis is one that will break under the weight of that techno-dystopia.

The world is unequal enough and the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to make things more unequal still. Poorer countries have had to take on debt they will struggle to pay back. Their more fragile healthcare systems and crowded cities forced them into stricter and more economically harmful lockdowns, and poverty rates have risen dramatically. Now, they rightly fear a staggered recovery from the pandemic will further disadvantage them, given how expensive vaccine rollouts look to be.

It should not be surprising then that several developing countries, led by India and South Africa, argued last week at the World Trade Organization’s intellectual