Welcome to the first edition of our Newsletter. We will update this newsletter regularly over the year to keep our friends, supporters and anyone interested in access to medicines issues informed of our past and upcoming activities.
The Peoples Vaccine Alliance of Ireland
Major Irish NGO’s ,INMO and Access to Medicines Ireland to form A Peoples Vaccine Alliance of Ireland as a global common good.
This initiative is to be formally launched July 8th at 1.00 pm and is the logical response to the shared objective of timely and widespread global Covid 19 vaccination. This will require greatly increased global vaccine production capacity with a broad geographical manufacturing base. The alliance will seek to create conditions whereby any qualified vaccine producer will to manufacture will be accommodated. This will require the removal of any legal barriers (TRIPS Waiver*) and the sharing of manufacturing know-how (WHO C-TAP*)
Access to Medicines Patient and Public Dialogue
AMI hold meeting to discuss the lack of access to medicines for health service users in Ireland.
This meeting provided an opportunity to share different experiences of the issue and to facilitate learning between all participants, while also building connections in this space in Ireland
TRIPS Waiver Arguments
On 5th May, 2021, the USA under President Joe Biden joined a global, progressive movement at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to suspend certain Intellectual Property (IP) protections for COVID-19 vaccines.
Ireland and EU countries, however, have not followed suit while there has been a predictable push-back by spokespeople for the pharmaceutical industry.
Access to Medicines Ireland address some of the arguments made against the TRIPS Waiver
MSF analysis of EU communications TRIPS Council on COVID-19 IP waiver proposal
On behalf of the European Union (EU), on 4 June 2021, the European Commission submitted a communication to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Council for Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council), which outlines a counter-proposal to the proposal for a temporary TRIPS waiver on intellectual property (IP) on COVID-19 medical tools, led by South Africa and India with 63 co-sponsoring WTO members.
External Links
Access to Medicines Ireland Events and Media
Past Events and Media
