Ensuring Equitable Access To Vaccines In The Global South: Analysing The Scope Of The Right To Health In Trips With Special Reference To “The Lessons From The Pandemic”
Pramita, LL.B, Symbiosis Law School, Pune
ABSTRACT
Access to quality and affordable healthcare is a human right. However, according to the WHO report 2017, almost half of the population could not obtain essential healthcare. This population primarily constitutes the “global south.” While on the one hand, globalization paints a borderless world concomitant to complex interdependencies, on the other hand, through international trade regulations, we have exacerbated the "global health divide."
This health divide was yet again witnessed in the current COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we have analyzed how the current Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) provisions have become a barrier to equitable health despite the flexibilities provided to least- developed and developing countries. Learning the lessons from the current pandemic, we have provided a way forward to approach the problem of inequitable health access.
Keywords: TRIPS, Essential medicines, Intellectual property, international trade, vaccine equity, global health, pandemic, human rights, patents
