THE head of the World Trade Organization said on Monday a meeting this week to tackle “glaring” inequity in COVID-19 vaccine allocation will be attended by major manufacturers and look at solutions such as firing up idle or under-used manufacturing plants in Africa and Asia.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian minister and World Bank executive who took up the position last month, has vowed to “forget business as usual” at the ailing 25-year-old global trade watchdog and said her top priority was to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
The April 14 meeting will bring together vaccine makers from the United States, China and Russia, ministers from wealthy and developing countries, and banking officials to discuss vaccine export restrictions, scaling up manufacturing and a waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-19 drugs and shots, she told Reuters.
“The vaccine inequity is glaring,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “I’m a pragmatic person and what
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