The United States' announcement that it backs waiving intellectual property (IP) protections for COVID-19 vaccines could be a "game-changer" in the global fight to control the pandemic, health experts said on Thursday.

The surprise move comes amid fears that India's escalating coronavirus crisis, along with new variants circulating in India and elsewhere, could stymie efforts to curb the disease unless vaccination levels are rapidly ramped up worldwide.

South Africa and India are leading efforts to temporarily waive patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines and medicines at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to boost supply to developing countries.

At least 100 out of the 164 WTO member states support the waiver, but others, including Australia, Britain, Japan, Switzerland, and the European Union, oppose it — as do drugmakers.

Pharmaceutical companies argue that strong IP protection helped them develop vaccines in record time, and will do so again for new variants or in a future pandemic.

The WHO said in April that only 0.2% of the 700 million vaccines administered globally had been in low-income countries. Africa's vaccination coverage is the lowest for any region.

We asked health experts in the global south for their reaction.

Read the full article about vaccine patent waiver by Anuradha Nagaraj, Anastasia Moloney and Kim Harrisberg at Global Citizen.