Will the medical oxygen industry learn a lesson from COVID-19? →

in

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the lack of equitable access to medical oxygen in low- and middle-income countries, particularly to medical liquid oxygen, or LOX, which is the gold standard of care.

Lower-income countries found themselves scrambling to work with the gas companies that produce medical oxygen to patch together even a limited supply.

Now advocates are pushing for the gas industry — particularly the six gas companies responsible for producing the vast majority of LOX — to lock in the advances that were made during the outbreak, while also taking additional steps to ensure LMICs have a sustainable supply.

Read more.

The climate emergency is turning fragile supply chains into a crisis →

in

Even before catastrophic floods hit Pakistan last year, antiretroviral medicines, or ARV, were in short supply for people in the country living with HIV. Some patients were traveling up to seven hours to receive care and pick up free medicines at government clinics. When the floods began in June, facilities already stretched by the COVID-19 pandemic started to run out of lifesaving medications altogether, said Anmol Mohan, a recent medical school graduate who began investigating after ARV shortages were reported during the pandemic.

“Patients didn’t have lifesaving medicines,” she said. “People had to travel, to take the whole day off and then the medicines weren’t there.”

The private market became the only source for such medicines, she said, but at prices that were out of reach of many patients. That left people in danger of developing resistance to the treatment and of falling dangerously ill.

Read more.

WTO finally agrees on a TRIPS deal. But not everyone is happy →

in

After its four-day ministerial conference spilled over into a sixth day, the World Trade Organization finally arrived at an agreement on the controversial TRIPS waiver. After heavily contested negotiations, member states agreed on a deal that temporarily removes intellectual property barriers around patents for COVID-19 vaccines, and postpone the discussions on extending the waiver to treatments and tests by six months. Read more.

TRIPS waiver compromise tabled at WTO finds few takers →

in

Discussions began last week within the World Trade Organization over a proposal to temporarily waive patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines. Even as WTO officials press for a resolution ahead of a long-delayed ministerial conference in June, the halting reactions of members to the document signal that reaching consensus in a month — or at all — will not be easy. Read more.