The Washington Post (‘Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish’, 26 April), making a case for such a waiver, claiming that failing to support it, which they argue would impede the global vaccination drive, was “morally wrong and foolish".Unfortunately, superficially appealing as it appears to be, the call for a waiver is, at best, a distraction and, at worst, a red herring in the current global public health debate.
As noted by WTO secretary-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, there is a legitimate “third way" that would allow wider manufacture of life-saving vaccines while preserving IPP for the inventors of those vaccines.