CLAIHR Blog articles about intellectual property rights.
THE COVID-19 CRISIS: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS SHOULD NOT SUPERSEDE THE RIGHT TO HEALTH
Could you patent the sun? – Polio vaccine inventor, Jonas Saulk
By Harmit Sarai and Karen Segal
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020, and a pandemic on March 11, 2020. At the time of writing, over 150 million people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19) and the global death toll has exceeded three million people. Over the last two months, the number of new COVID-19 cases globally has almost doubled, nearing the pandemic’s peak infection rate. As the infection rate began multiplying faster, the epicentre of the pandemic shifted to developing countries like Brazil, Mexico, and India—all three countries have surpassed the United Kingdom and Italy in numbers of confirmed fatalities from the virus.
