Should vaccines be patent protected in a pandemic

Should vaccines be patent protected in a pandemic? As vaccine rollouts progress in a number of high-income nations, developing countries are lobbying the World Trade Organization to temporarily suspend patent protections on Covid19 vaccines. They argue a suspension will make vaccines more accessible to poorer nations. As things stand, the global share of vaccines is heavily skewed towards richer nations. At the beginning of the year, developed countries had secured over 3.7 billion doses, many through advanced-purchase orders agreed with vaccine manufacturers early in the pandemic. These doses account for 51% of targeted manufacturing capacity in 2021, and almost all of the publicly declared capacity for the year.

This has driven a significant shortage in the supply of doses available for purchase. As a result, the number of doses secured by developing countries – who largely rely on WHO not-for-profit initiatives to purchase vaccines on their behalf – is so far sufficient to provide only a small share of their populations with a full course of treatment. Because of this unequal landscape, developing countries are proposing a temporary suspension of intellectual property rights related to Covid-19. They argue that protecting vaccines and other treatments with patents concentrates them in the hands of richer countries, locking out poorer countries who have so far struggled to gain access to them.

Source : Should vaccines be patent protected in a pandemic? | Frontier Economics (frontiereconomics.com)

Based on the above article excerpt, answer the following questions:

a. Explain the impact of the patent waiver on the vaccine manufacturer.

b. Explain the impact of the patent waiver on the low income nation