WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed his support for patent waivers to COVID-19 vaccines. He said the world  has a chance to end the acute phase of the pandemic by July but only if 70 percent of the world's population were vaccinated by then. Tedros made the remarks during a visit to a partly state-owned vaccine producer in South Africa on Saturday. He said the World Trade Organization's intellectual property rights agreement on patent waivers was in place for situations like the COVID-19 pandemic. But major vaccine manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industries are against the waivers saying that this will stifle innovation.