IPR Waiver And Covid-19 Vaccines

December of 2019, this is when the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was initially noticed in a seafood market of Wuhan city in Hubei Province of China. On March 11, 2020 World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 as a pandemic and that's when the things changed. Every country was in the race of developing a vaccine for this disease and certain high-income nations came up with a vaccine too, but their ability to fight the disease or what we call their effectiveness was always questioned. Before it all became a mere business, in October of 2020, India and South Africa took the initiative and requested the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to suspend the intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 vaccine for a limited period of time. The countries had asked the TRIPS Council to recommend, a waiver on the implementation, application and enforcement of four sections in the second part of the agreement. These sections are "1, 4, 5, and 7". They pertain