Department Of South And Central Asian Studies

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Author: search.filters.author.Jakovljevic, MihajloSubject: search.filters.subject.COVID-19

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    COVID-19 Vaccine, TRIPS, and Global Health Diplomacy: India's Role at the WTO Platform
    (Hindawi Limited, 2021-08-27T00:00:00) Chattu, Vijay Kumar; Singh, Bawa; Kaur, Jaspal; Jakovljevic, Mihajlo
    In light of the devastation caused by COVID-19, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and vaccine research and development (R&D) have been occupying a prominent position in the field of global health diplomacy (GHD). Most countries, international organizations, and charitable organizations have been engaged in the R&D of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure timely affordability and accessibility to all countries. Concomitantly, the World Trade Organization (WTO) provides some provisions and enforcements regarding copyrights, patents, trademarks, geographical indications, and industrial designs. Given these safeguards, it is considered that intellectual property rights (IPRs) have become major barriers to the affordability and accessibility of vaccines/medicines/technology, particularly to the developing/least developed countries. Realizing the gravity of the pandemic impact, as well as its huge population and size, India has elevated this issue in its global health diplomacy by submitting a joint proposal with South Africa to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a temporary waiver of IPRs to ensure timely affordability and accessibility of COVID-19 medical products to all countries. However, the issue of the temporary waive off had become a geopolitical issue. Countries that used to claim per se as strong advocates of human rights, egalitarianism, and healthy democracy have opposed this proposal. In this contrasting milieu, this paper is aimed at examining how the TRIPS has become a barrier for developing countries' development and distribution of vaccines/technology; secondly, how India strategizes its role in the WTO in pursuant of its global health diplomacy? We conclude that the IPRs regime should not become a barrier to the accessibility/affordability of essential drugs and vaccines. To ensure access, India needs to get more engaged in GHD with all the involved global stakeholders to get strong support for their joint proposal. The developed countries that rejected/resisted the proposal can rethink their full support. � 2021 Vijay Kumar Chattu et al.
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    Public health policy of India and COVID-19: Diagnosis and prognosis of the combating response
    (MDPI AG, 2021-03-22T00:00:00) Gauttam, Priya; Patel, Nitesh; Singh, Bawa; Kaur, Jaspal; Chattu, Vijay Kumar; Jakovljevic, Mihajlo
    (1) Background: Society and public policy have been remained interwoven since the inception of the modern state. Public health policy has been one of the important elements of the public administration of the Government of India (GOI). In order to universalize healthcare facilities for all, the GOI has formulated and implemented the national health policy (NHP). The latest NHP (2017) has been focused on the �Health in All� approach. On the other hand, the ongoing pandemic COVID-19 had left critical impacts on India�s health, healthcare system, and human security. The paper�s main focus is to critically examine the existing healthcare facilities and the GOI�s response to combat the COVID-19 apropos the NHP 2017. The paper suggests policy options that can be adopted to prevent the further expansion of the pandemic and prepare the country for future health emergency-like situations. (2) Methods: Extensive literature search was done in various databases, such as Scopus, Web of Science, Medline/PubMed, and google scholar search engines to gather relevant information in the Indian context. (3) Results: Notwithstanding the several combatting steps on a war-footing level, COVID-19 has placed an extra burden over the already overstretched healthcare infrastructure. Consequently, infected cases and deaths have been growing exponentially, making India stand in second place among the top ten COVID-19-infected countries. (4) Conclusions: India needs to expand the public healthcare system and enhance the expenditure as per the set goals in NHP-17 and WHO standards. The private healthcare system has not been proved reliable during the emergency. Only the public health system is suitable for the country wherein the population�s substantial size is rural and poor. � 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.