GENEVA — The head of the World Trade Organization said on Monday that trade barriers related to medical supplies used against COVID-19 had risen and urged member states to drop them, as it intensified efforts to reach a deal on vaccine-sharing.
“The trend is going in the wrong direction,” WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told a virtual U.N. forum, referring to barriers on goods trade related to the pandemic.
“We need to bring those restrictions down so we can move… medical goods and supplies and vaccines (faster).”
She said the number of trade restrictions was 109 at the start of the pandemic early last year, and had later fallen to 51 but had since risen again t…
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