World Trade Organisation member states agreed  on Wednesday to intensify talks toward improving access to Covid-19 products, as developing nations push for a proposal to ease patent and other legal protections on coronavirus vaccines - and some wealthier countries remain stiffly opposed.

A WTO panel focusing on intellectual property, which includes patents on technological know-how like vaccines and the processes to manufacture them, wrapped up a two-day meeting on Wednesday with an agreement to start a “text-based process” to pull together proposals about improving the fight against Covid-19 through the Geneva-based trade body’s intricate system of rules.

The goal is to help jump-start lagging efforts to get vaccines to developing-world countries that badly need them, according to a Geneva-based trade official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter. New, informal talks will start next week among members of the panel, with an eye toward pulling together a report for a meeting of WTO ambassadors on July 21-22.

South Africa and India floated the proposal for a temporary easing of patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, therapies and tests - known as an “IP waiver” -- last fall. While many developed countries  with strong pharmaceutical industries hesitated about or were outright opposed that idea, the debate received a jolt last month when the Biden administration announced support for an IP waiver for vaccines alone.

 In the two days of talks, South Africa and India laid out a revision of their proposal - now backed by over 60 countries - that insisted on the three-year temporary nature of the waiver for COVID-19 products, the trade official said.

But some countries - notably the European Union’s 27 member states, as well as Britain, Switzerland and Korea - continue to oppose a waiver, the official said, relaying deliberations in the closed-door talks Tuesday and Wednesday.