The African Union is backing calls for drugmakers to waive some intellectual property rights on COVID-19 medicines and vaccines to speed up their rollout to poor countries, the head of its disease control body said on Thursday. They have faced opposition from some developed nations, but the backing of the African Union (AU) may give renewed impetus for the push to relax IP rules. Read More“In 1996, HIV drugs were available, and we saw how mortality in the developed world decreased drastically. But it would take 10 years before those drugs were accessible in Africa in any meaningful way,” he said. Several countries on the continent, including Egypt, Zimbabwe and Senegal, have already started rolling out Chinese COVID-19 shots.

Source: Standard Digital February 25, 2021 11:03 UTC