Piyush Goyal, Commerce and industry Minister, Govt. of India said that intellectual property rights (TRIPS) waiver for five years agreed in the recently concluded WTO meet will help developing countries manufacture patented COVID vaccines to deal with the pandemic.

He also said that India has fully protected the interests of farmers and fishermen. "We did not come under any pressure. We are known as deal makers and not deal breakers...We stick to our issues...Indian farmers are fully protected," he added.

Goyal said that India already has a number of COVID vaccines and can help other developing countries to make vaccines.

Members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last week agreed to grant a temporary patent waiver for manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines for five years.

Under this, a country will be able to issue a compulsory licence to its domestic pharma firms to make that vaccine without taking approval from the original maker. Besides, it was also decided to permit export of those vaccines.

However, talks on including therapeutics and diagnostics, as proposed by India and South Africa, under the purview of this waiver would start after six months, he added.

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