Australia to support waiving intellectual property rights

for COVID-19 vaccines.

In an Unprecedented move, Trade Minister of Australia Dan Tehan says Australia will support
an international push to waive intellectual property (IP) protections for COVID-19 vaccines as
spiralling infection rates across the globe extend the pandemic and create apt conditions for
new variants. Earlier India and South Africa have commanded the campaign to change World
Trade Organization (WTO) rules in an effort to make it easier for low and middle-income
countries to manufacture and sell cheaper generic copies of COVID-19 vaccines produced by
multinational pharmaceutical giants. In this year United State also putting its weight on the
above waiver proposal by saying "extraordinary measures" were needed to ramp up global
production of vaccines to fight the spread of the virus.