Ibero-American foreign ministers who met virtually on April 15, preparatory to the 27th Summit of Ibero-American Heads of State and Government on April 21 hosted by Andorra, focused sharply on the issues of equitable access to coronavirus vaccines, waiving patents on those vaccines, and the need for transferring technology and intellectual property to developing nations to allow them to produce vaccines themselves. Expressing the views of many of those present, Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard pointed to the poor performance of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVAX mechanism, which is supposed to accelerate development and production of vaccines in poorer nations, but has fallen far short of its goals.
In stressing the importance of developing “technological innovation” in every country to allow them to deal with the pandemic, Ebrard explained that “the great asymmetry that exists in terms of the capacity of specialized development in the production of vaccines and medications on a large scale, is very evident.” A key strategic goal, he said, is to have everything necessary “to reduce our dependence in the area of vaccines, as the access to new important technologies is vital for the future of medicine and the health of our people in the region.” And, he added, while this is key in the area of vaccines, “it is also true in every area that has to do with protecting human beings, such that these ideas must be broadened to every field of science and technology,” Prensa Latina reported him as saying. Ebrard urged his Ibero-American colleagues to make cooperation in this field a priority—the pandemic is now entering its third wave in some countries which is “a tragedy,” he said.
