EU for 'concrete' US plan over vaccine patent lifting, Pope backs move

EU chief Charles Michel said the bloc is ready to discuss a US proposal to lift patents on Covid-19 vaccines once the details are clear.

"We are ready to engage on this topic, as soon as a concrete proposal would be put on the table," Michel said, as EU leaders discussed the issue in Porto.

Michel, who represents the EU's 27 national leaders, cautioned however that the bloc has doubts that the idea "in the short term, that it's the magic bullet."

The quickest solution to ramp up the distribution of vaccines globally was exports and the EU encouraged "all the partners to facilitate the export of doses," he said.

Michel spoke on the second day of an EU summit that was to also feature a bilateral meeting between the EU and India, where authorities on Saturday said the pandemic killed 4,000 people in a single day.

"It misses the point to say that (a patent waiver) is the emergency," French President Emmanuel Macron said.

"The emergency is to produce more and increase solidarity now," he said.

Pope backs temporary suspension of vaccine patents

Pope Francis offered his support Saturday for waiving coronavirus vaccine patents to boost supply to poorer countries, in a video message to the "Vax Live" concert.

The Argentine pontiff backed "universal access to the vaccine and the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights" in the recording made in his native Spanish.

Francis, who has repeatedly spoken of the need to share vaccines, condemned the "virus of individualism" that "makes us indifferent to the suffering of others".

"A variant of this virus is closed nationalism, which prevents, for example, an internationalism of vaccines," he said.

"Another variant is when we put the laws of the market or intellectual property above the laws of love and the health of humanity."

His comments come after the United States announced its surprise support for a global waiver on patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines.

The move is fiercely opposed by major drug makers because they say it would set a precedent that could threaten future innovations, and insist the move would not speed up production.

Britain's Prince Harry and pop royalty including Jennifer Lopez were among those who took part in "Vax Live: The Concert To Reunite The World", to urge faster and more equitable global vaccinations.