Germany now has to agree to a loosening of the patent for vaccines

Christian Humborg is the managing director of Wikimedia Deutschland eV, Christian Katzer is the managing director of the German section of Doctors Without Borders

Wikipedia was founded with the aim of sharing knowledge with everyone in the world and of contributing to the knowledge of the world together. Only in this way can knowledge develop its greatest possible benefit. This can be seen in history, especially in the Enlightenment phase, one of the foundations of our modern society.

On the other hand, if knowledge and knowledge-based goods are hoarded or scarce, then those people who do not have access pay the price. History has shown us this and, sadly, our present as well.

For the middle class, at least in Europe, economic advancement and social participation were only possible when the knowledge of the world was no longer available to just a few, but to many. Technical progress and medical innovations benefited the common good, for example epidemics were contained.

Today we are again faced with a historic task of defeating a new virus – and so far we have failed because governments and companies do not recognize their socio-historical responsibility.

Intellectual property rights fuel scarcity in poorer countries

We see every day that people in resource-poor countries are dying of Covid-19. Much is lacking: clinical oxygen, protective clothing for health workers, drugs, tests and protective vaccines. The scarcity of these resources is promoted, among other things, by monopoly and an artificial restriction of their availability through patents and other intellectual property rights.

A temporary suspension of international patent protection and certain other intellectual property rights, a so-called TRIPS waiver for medical Covid-19 products, would significantly improve this situation. The application for one was initiated by South Africa and India. Without lengthy negotiations with manufacturers, global production of drugs and other medical products could begin.

But the global north keeps its intellectual property, i.e. knowledge, under lock and key. This is all the more frustrating since it only takes a stroke of the pen here – literally – to create the conditions for better availability of these essential goods.

Biontech will be responsible for one eighth of German economic output in 2021

Germany, of all places, has so far been a bitter opponent of the TRIPS waiver. Germany thus places its own economic interests clearly above global health needs. The reason is obvious – two major players in the field of mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 are based here, Biontech and Curevac. The Mainz company Biontech alone is expected to be responsible for one eighth of German economic growth this year, a gigantic sum. The public funding that both companies receive is just as gigantic. Despite public funding and the need of the global community, the pharmaceutical companies concerned keep their knowledge under lock and key. At the same time, exorbitant profits are being made with the vaccine.

Unfortunately, this dynamic is not new. Doctors Without Borders has been denouncing market failure and systematic inequality in medical research and development for over twenty years. Because even before Covid-19, billions of people worldwide did not have sufficient access to life-saving drugs and vaccines. Either because the prices were unaffordable for them (and often are to this day).

Or because no medication was or is not available at all. Because hardly any new knowledge is generated and hardly any investments are made in research and development to combat diseases that primarily affect poor people. The missing vaccine against Covid-19 is only one chapter in a sad, repetitive story.

South Africa shared its knowledge with the world

There can also be another way: Most recently, it was South African researchers who shared their knowledge of the new Omicron variant with the world, even if this led to travel restrictions that will hit the South African economy hard. Germany benefits from South Africa’s gene sequencing ability, which the country built up in the wake of the HIV pandemic, and yet they only want to continue producing the vaccine themselves.

Omikron can and should be a turning point for the debate. We have to recognize now at the latest that openness and shared access to knowledge is the only way out of the pandemic, and we can only go it together. When, if not now, does politics have to rethink and reflect on the values ​​that make progress and our modern life possible at all?

The world is now watching with excitement how the new German government is positioning itself in this regard. For a “keep it up” of egoism, or for an innovative, courageous and solidary new beginning. Before the federal election, more than 140 former heads of state and government and Nobel Prize winners wrote an open letter to the candidates asking them to support the initiative of India and South Africa. The signatories include the former French President Francois Hollande, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Roberta Gbowee and the economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The new coalition promises in the title of its treaty to dare to make more progress. It must now keep this promise in the fight against the pandemic: free access to life-saving knowledge, fair distribution of vaccines worldwide. A new approach in international solidarity instead of national egoism.

Wikimedia Germany and Doctors Without Borders are calling on the new federal government to give up the blockade on the TRIPS waiver and to advocate extensive knowledge and technology transfer. No more time can be wasted now to globally expand the production of all products that are necessary to end the pandemic. One thing is certain: this pandemic will only be over when it is over for everyone. Fair access to knowledge and technology play a crucial role in this.