U.S. President Biden calls for intellectual property protection waivers on COVID-19 vaccines

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday called on nations meeting at the World Trade Organization next week to agree to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines in the wake of the discovery of a new coronavirus variant in South Africa.

“The news about this new variant should make clearer than ever why this pandemic will not end until we have global vaccinations,” Biden said in a statement.

“This news today reiterates the importance of moving on this (waiving intellectual property protections) quickly.”

(Reporting by Nandita Bose, writing by Lucia Mutikani, editing by Chris Reese)