To counter patent laws ... launch an international alliance to share the means of treating Corona

In addition to the World Health Organization, 37 countries, in addition to the World Health Organization, have requested joint ownership of vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tools to eliminate the global pandemic of the Corona Virus virus, in an anti-patent initiative, fearing that these laws would become an obstacle to sharing basic medical supplies.

Organizations, including Médecins Sans Frontières, welcomed the initiative dubbed the "Alliance Access to Covid Technology-19", and developing countries represented most of the participating countries.

Developing countries and other small countries fear that the rich countries that pump resources to find a vaccine, among the more than one hundred vaccines being developed, will be in the front of the queue because of their investments when the effort to make a drug succeeds.

This effort, which was originally proposed last March, aims to create a single body of scientific knowledge, data and intellectual property for treatment in a pandemic that has infected more than 6 million people, and killed about 360,000.

The World Health Organization issued a "Call for Solidarity for Action", calling on other stakeholders to join the initiative.

"The World Health Organization is aware of the important role that patents play in driving innovation, but this is a time when people will have priority," said WHO Director-General Tidros Adhanum Gebresos in a press briefing on the Internet.

In turn, the President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, said of the voluntary initiative that "vaccines, tests, diagnostic tools and other major tools should be made available globally as global public goods."

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Producers, for its part, has raised concerns about undermining forms of intellectual property protection that this industry group said provides a avenue for cooperation and will be needed after the pandemic.

The Association also asked whether the efforts to share intellectual property would actually expand the access to Covid-19 drugs.

The World Health Organization said that among the countries that will sign the initiative are Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Portugal and the Netherlands, and other countries of the various world.