Dr Aisling McMahon (Maynooth University) has published a timely article with Professor Susi Geiger (UCD) in the Journal of Medical Ethics entitled “Analysis of the institutional landscape and proliferation of proposals for global vaccine equity for COVID-19: too many cooks or too many recipes?” This article compares current and proposed global institutional mechanisms to increase equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, focusing on their institutional and operational complementarities and overlaps. It specifically considers the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) COVAX model, the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool initiative (C-TAP), the proposed Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement intellectual property waiver and other proposed WHO and World Trade Organization technology transfer proposals. The article argues that global equitable access to vaccines must be our priority if we are to bring COVID-19 under control, and the steps needed to achieve this must be taken as soon as possible. In this respect, the article argues that there is a clear need for concerted global multilateral action to recognise the complementariness and the benefits and inefficiencies of individual models proposed, and to provide a pathway for collaboration in attaining global equitable access.
The full article is freely available here.
Dr Aisling McMahon is an Associate Professor of Law at Maynooth University. Her research focuses on health law and intellectual property law. Dr McMahon’s work is particularly interested in the role of intellectual property rights within the health context, including the potential impacts that patents, can have on access to, and delivery of healthcare.