In this thematic line will be presented insights, approaches, and proposals to successful experiences and promising cases in the face of barriers to access to medicines or vaccines, which enrich the international debate that is taking place not only to face the current emergency but to project how to face the future.
In the context of the ongoing pandemic, geopolitical adjustments have been generated that foster growing international support, among other initiatives, which South Africa and India have led since October 2020 in favor of the suspension of obligations related to the protection of intellectual property ( known as “Waiver”), this for containment of COVID-19, although none has been implemented effectively.
Beyond this type of pertinent initiatives, at the global present time, it has become evident that the health vulnerability of societies grows with their scientific and technological dependence, with which it is urgent to promote adjustments in intellectual property mechanisms that allow the generation and consolidation of national industrial capacities, and dynamics of genuine international cooperation that allow timely access to the population to essential health technologies (including medicines and, among them, vaccines) for health.
Thematic line leaders
Claudia is the Director of the IFARMA Foundation (Colombia). She is a doctor of pharmacy, master of pharmacology, and pharmacist. She has extensive experience in research and project management in two lines: pharmacoepidemiology and public policy, including activities for the design and evaluation of public policies related to medicines in Colombia and Latin America. She has developed pharmacotherapeutic follow-up activities for chronic patients in Primary Health Care (Bogotá). She is currently a full-time assistant professor in the department of pharmacy at the National University of Colombia.
Cesar is the Director of Misión Salud (Colombia). Pharmaceutical Chemist from the National University of Colombia, Master in Social Studies of Science and Technology, and Ph.D. candidate in Logic and Philosophy of Science from the University of Salamanca.