US will support waiver of intellectual property protections for vaccines

The United States says it will support a World Trade Organization proposal to waive intellectual-property protections for vaccines against the coronavirus, a plan opposed by drugmakers. The purpose of the waiver is to increase global supply of vaccines and help get those vaccines to poor nations. Drugmakers say that few countries have the ability to produce the vaccines and that there is a limited global supply of the materials needed to produce them, Al Jazeera reported.