Full access to generics for poor?
2002-06-25 12:59
Special Report
President Jacob Zuma has met with American businessman Bill Gates to discuss issues relating to the country's HIV/Aids pandemic.
Washington - The United States is to present a new proposal to the World Trade Organisation intended to allow poor countries full access to generic drugs to combat pandemics such as Aids, officials said on Monday.
The proposal due to be presented on Tuesday would enable developing countries that do not produce their own drugs to obtain them from third-party manufacturers.
The United States, which has long fought to protect the rights
to drug companies to patents, eased that position last year in the face of potential threats of anthrax, smallpox or other
bioterrorist attacks.
Combat disease
The US Trade Representative's office said it would work to allow
greater access to drugs to combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other
public health crises through "a mechanism for easing WTO rules
regarding production of these vital medicines".
"This initiative is part of the Administration's global effort
to address the serious health problems, such as HIV/Aids,
afflicting African and other poor developing countries," the USTR
office said in a statement.
The WTO agreed at November's summit in Doha to let developing
countries override patents held by pharmaceutical companies in
order to make cheaper generic drugs available in times of medical
crises.
But the agreement did not apply to countries that lack the
domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity to produce the
drugs.
The Doha agreement exempts certain drugs from the WTO's
trade-related intellectual property rights agreement, known as
TRIPS.
Developing countries are now allowed to obtain pharmaceuticals
from third party manufacturers, but will lose that right beginning on January 1, 2005, when the Doha agreement is implemented.
Commitment
"The [US] administration has demonstrated its commitment to
address HIV/Aids and other major epidemic diseases," said US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.
"Now we are working with other WTO Members on ways to help
poorer countries that can't make pharmaceuticals. We believe our
proposal offers a way to address major public health crises faced
by those most in need."
Officials want to have a final plan approved by the WTO by
the end of this year, two years ahead of the deadline.
"We are very committed to meeting that deadline," a US trade
official said, adding "we are getting near the end of the
transition, so we want to anticipate that and have a solution in
place."
According to Health Action International, based in Sri Lanka,
fewer than 10 of 130 developing countries have the necessary
infrastructure to manufacture their own pharmaceuticals.
The US proposal aims to tackle this problem by granting third
party countries the right, under certain conditions, to produce
generics for sale in developing countries.
The European Union announced in Brussels that it would present a
similar proposal on Tuesday to the Geneva-based trade body.
A US official said the US and EU proposals are "almost the same
thing".
"The thrust of what we are trying to achieve and roughly the way
we are going about it is very similar (to the EU), we both and all the other countries have to sort out more precisely what is the legal mechanism" for achieving that goal, the official said. - Sapa/AFP
- SAPA