Dr. Aisling McMahon:

In May 2020, the WHO initiated the solidarity call to action, launching its support for the C-TAP and urging key actors, including governments, to take action. Put simply, the C-TAP is a platform to facilitate the sharing of intellectual property rights, data, know-how and cell lines related to Covid-19 technologies, including vaccines.

Its end goal is to increase equitable access. The C-TAP model is needed because production capacity for vaccines, medicines and diagnostics for Covid can be increased globally but, in order to do this, more companies must license and share intellectual property rights, know-how and technologies to enable others to produce them. The C-TAP sets up a mechanism to facilitate this. It is a voluntary model that is subject to the agreement of such companies. Participation, depending on the context, could include compensation in the form of royalties where appropriate.

Countries must learn from the past. The use of intellectual property rights in a manner which hindered access to medicines has had devastating impacts previously, particularly in the HIV-AIDS crisis, with many millions of lives lost as a result. We must ensure that in this health crisis, that does not happen again. In short, supporting the C-TAP provides a way to achieve global equitable access to vaccines. It would maximise the manufacturing capacity globally by enabling more companies to make vaccines. It would accelerate the development of new technologies by encouraging the sharing of data and know-how, thereby increasing transparency. It would facilitate more accessible access. The C-TAP works in collaboration with the existing UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool, which has extensive experience in pooling intellectual property rights for public health. Furthermore, support for the C-TAP aligns with the European Commission's recently published intellectual property strategy and the Word Health Assembly's Covid-19 response resolution, both of which encourage voluntary pooling and licensing of intellectual property for Covid-19. Addressing vaccine inequality in this way also gives us a better opportunity to ensure that the core values and intentions of Irish Aid's policy, A Better World, are put into practice, reaching the furthest behind first and leaving no one behind, which is Ireland's approach to realising the UN sustainable development goals. It is fully consistent with Ireland's foreign policy goals of openness, global solidarity and a commitment to multilateralism.

The C-TAP is also vital if COVAX, the vaccine pillar of the WHO's Access to Covid-19 Tools, ACT, Accelerator is to be a success. C-TAP and COVAX are complementary to each other. On 5 February, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus of the WHO, in discussing COVAX's first interim vaccine distribution forecast, cautioned that:

Countries are ready to go but the vaccines aren't there... We encourage all manufacturers to share their data and technology to ensure global equitable access to vaccines.

However, it must be emphasised that the C-TAP will only be a success if more Governments and companies support it. On the other hand, if voluntary mechanisms like the C-TAP do not achieve sufficient support, then mandatory measures for suspending intellectual property rights under the WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, waiver proposal will be needed, and should be supported, to encourage and achieve change.

Access to Medicines Ireland is joined by ActionAid Ireland, the Irish Global Health Network, the INMO, Médecins Sans Frontières Ireland and Oxfam Ireland in calling on the Government to support the C-TAP. To date, 40 countries worldwide, including five European countries, have endorsed it. Furthermore, last September, the President, Mr. Michael D. Higgins, indicated his support for the WHO's global solidarity call to action in his speech at the UN General Assembly. Most recently, on 3 February, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that rich countries had a moral responsibility to help countries unable to access vaccines. This could include supplementing their own ability to produce vaccines with co-operation from the pharmaceutical companies regarding relaxation of some of the patent situations.

The bottom line is that we have got to get the entire world vaccinated. Global multilateral action is needed and Ireland can and should be a leading voice in this regard. Access to Medicines Ireland encourages the Government to endorse formally the global solidarity call to action and the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool as soon as possible and to take action at an EU level to encourage greater support for the C-TAP. Alongside this, we urge the Government to increase financial support for the WHO's ACT Accelerator. We thank the committee for granting us this opportunity to share our views.