WHO and Costa Rica are developing health tech platform

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Costa Rica will launch a technology platform with an aim to mitigate access barriers to COVID-19 vaccines, medicines, and other health products. President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado called on member states, academia, corporations, and international organisations to promote more global nonexclusive voluntary licensing. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out that traditional market models are inadequate to cover the entire globe, while additionally highlighting the importance of solidarity within and between countries, as well as the co-operation of the private sector. The platform will pool data, knowledge, and intellectual property for COVID-19 health products. With the open sharing of science and data, companies across the globe can access the information they need to develop the technologies, which allows companies to reduce costs, increase access, and scale up availability.