As countries gathered for the World Trade Organization General Council meeting this week, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urged the European Union, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland to stop stalling the landmark proposal to waive intellectual property—known as the “TRIPS waiver”—that would help increase production of lifesaving COVID-19 medical tools.

“As many countries in Africa right now are reporting a high number of deaths due to the spread of new and existing variants of COVID-19, these governments are in dire need of tools and treatments to help save lives of critically ill patients,” said Dr. Tom Ellman, director of MSF’s Southern Africa Medical Unit. “It is outrageous to see countries blocking the ‘TRIPS Waiver’ that is desperately needed to remove legal barriers and allow production to be scaled up by multiple manufacturers for critical COVID-19 drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines.” Read more .