But the Biden administration's signal of support amounts to a major step that aid groups and Democrats had been pressing for.

"The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines," US Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote in a statement.

President Joe Biden and Tai had been weighing the issue after calls from global advocacy groups and progressives to support waivers on World Trade Organization rules that had been proposed by India and South Africa.

It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines."

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Wednesday said the Biden administration's support of a Covid-19 vaccine waiver proposal "put people over patents."

"To me it was a value statement," Murthy told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront."

Murthy emphasized the role of the US in helping lead the world through the global Covid-19 crisis, saying that "if we stick together, if we work together, if we help work and collaborate with countries around the world, I do believe we will turn this pandemic around."

There had been divisions within the administration over whether to support easing some patent restrictions on vaccines, according to people familiar with the matter.

The White House said Tai would make a recommendation to Biden on whether to support a petition in front of the WTO sponsored by India and South Africa to waive an intellectual property agreement on pharmaceutical products.

Outside aid groups, liberal Democrats in Congress and other world leaders had all called on Biden to support easing some patent restrictions on vaccines.