The European Parliament calls on the European Commission and the Member States to formally support the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP)

On Friday, 10 July 2020, the European Parliament adopted a resolution entitled, The EU’s public health strategy post-COVID-19, by 526 votes to 105 and 50 abstentions. This resolution paves the way for the creation of a European Health Union and… Continue Reading

WTO TRIPS Council (informal): South Africa’s interventions on COVID-19, TRIPS flexibilities, and domestic manufacturing capacity

On Friday, 19 June 2020, the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened an informal virtual Open-ended Meeting of the TRIPS Council. . The following statements were delivered by South Africa at the virtual open-ended informal meeting of the TRIPS Council. In… Continue Reading

EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan issues statement on European Union compulsory licensing in context of COVID-19, makes important statement about TRIPS Article 31bis

On 14 May 2020, Bernd Lange, Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) wrote a letter to Phil Hogan (Commissioner for Trade, European Commission) on the “commercial aspects of intellectual property rights for medical products in the… Continue Reading

WHA73: Written statement of KEI – Agenda item 3 – Address by WHO Director-General devoted to the COVID-19 pandemic response in advance of the opening of the Health Assembly

KEI is an accredited non-state actor at the World Health Organization (WHO). This is our statement at the 73rd World Health Assembly. https://extranet.who.int/nonstateactorsstatements/meetingoutline/6 Knowledge Ecology International Meeting: Seventy-third World Health Assembly Written statements on COVID-19 pandemic The biggest question today… Continue Reading

WHO member states poised to adopt weaker than needed COVID-19 resolution after tortuous negotiations

UPDATE: The World Health Organization has published the COVID-19 response resolution as a conference paper (A73/CONF./1) marked with the date of 18 May 2020. The sponsors of the draft resolution included: Albania, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia (Plurinational State… Continue Reading

Patents related to PX-UV, an R2-D2 look-alike robot that may disinfect public spaces from SARS-CoV-2

Texas-based company Xenex Disinfection Services, a manufacturer of robots that reportedly removes the SARS-CoV-2 virus from public spaces, has been making news lately. One of their robots, which uses ultraviolet lights to kill viruses and bacteria in surfaces and look… Continue Reading