WTO meeting on COVID vaccine patent waiver proposal went 'very well', chair says

The first World Trade Organization meeting to discuss a new draft agreement to temporarily waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines went "very well", its chair told Reuters on Friday.

"It went very well and here's why I say that. No member rejected the outcome as completely unacceptable," Ambassador Lansana Gberie from Sierra Leone told Reuters shortly after the closed-door WTO meeting.

"Most said this could be developed into a negotiating text and that's the trajectory we have to follow," he added.


The WTO's 164 members were invited to discuss the so-called "outcome document" that stems from months of negotiations between the main parties, the United States, the European Union, India and South Africa in an effort to break an 18-month deadlock.