Peter Piot: health gap is "morally reprehensible." Calls to investigation into use of CL, PI, joint procurement

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

In surpassingly blunt terms, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot 
said the health care gap between rich and poor countries was 
becoming "morally reprehensible" and he called for investigation
of "mechanisms such as compulsory licensing, transfer of 
technology,  parallel import of drugs and joint procurement by 
several  countries."  

  Jamie


AIDS-Africa-drugs: UN, African states press for affordable
anti-AIDS treatment
Agence France-Presse - September 12, 1999
http://ww2.aegis.com/news/afp/1999/AF990942.html
------------------------------------------------

LUSAKA, Sept 12 (AFP) - The United Nations and African states
will press western pharmaceutical companies to make effective
drugs available to the millions of Africans infected by AIDS, a
UN official said here Sunday.

UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot told an international
conference on AIDS in Africa that the gap between rich and poor
countries concerning care for people infected by the deadly virus
was becoming "morally reprehensible".

Piot said the UN, Senegal, and Cote d'Ivoire were negotiating
with pharamaceutical firms in order to make drugs more accessible
to millions of Africans.
												
But he added that while progress had been made, large-scale
treatment programs still did not exist on the continent.

Very few Africans - who spend an average of 10 dollars a year on
health care - can afford life-prolonging and pain-reducing drugs
made in the west, and which cost about 12,000 dollars a year per
person.

"Access to even the most basic of generic medicines is woefully
inadequate," Piot said.

"Therefore, mechanisms such as compulsory licensing, transfer of
technology, parallel import of drugs and joint procurement by
several countries should be investigated," he added.

The UNAIDS chief said that while international treaties on trade
and intellectual property must be respected, "we surely have
compelling justification: AIDS is an unprecedented crisis,
requiring special measures."

Piot said by the end of last year, more than 33 million people, a
number that exceeds the entire population of Canada, were living
with HIV in Africa.

   [snip]

990912
AF990942


-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org