[Ip-health] Doha+5: access to medicines promises have not been kept

[Khalil Elouardighi - Act Up-Paris]

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[Download full press kit from
http://www.actupparis.org/IMG/pdf/Doha_5_years_later_.pdf]

Act Up-Paris =AD November 8 2006
After 5 years, the WTO deal on access to medicines is a failure
G8 leaders must step up

On November 14, 2001, the World Trade Organization=B9s ministerial conferen=
ce
in Doha, Qatar, agreed on a deal for access to medicines: the =AB Doha
Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health =BB (1). According to this deal,
developing countries would henceforward be allowed to bypass drug patent
monopolies that stop the flow of cheap generic medicines from countries lik=
e
India into regions like Africa.

Five years later, according to data published by the World Health
Organization, 74% of AIDS medicines are still under monopoly (2) and 77% of
Africans still have no access to AIDS treatment (3). In the Philippines, in
Indonesia, in Niger, in Botswana or in Haiti, not a single generic version
of antiretrovirals is available (3) in 2006, even though these countries
have 8 different anti-HIV molecules on the market: all of these drugs are
patented versions that the poor can=B9t afford.

This situation flies in the face of article 5 (b) of the 2001 Doha
Declaration, which affirmed that =AB Each Member State of the WTO has the
right to grant compulsory licenses and the freedom to determine the grounds
upon which such licenses are granted =BB. In contrast with a voluntary
license, which can only be granted voluntarily by the patent owner, a
compulsory license can be granted by the government, without the consent of
the patent owner. However, in practice actual use of this procedure since
2001 has been extremely rare.

=AB Use of the Doha Declaration provision is almost impossible in practice,
because of the political pressure exerted by the Bush administration =BB
reveals Dr Pedro Chequer (5), who until recently was the Director of the
National AIDS Program of Brazil. =AB That=B9s exactly what happened to Braz=
il
last year, when we tried to use compulsory licensing=BB.

=AB At Cipla, so far we have been able to make generic versions of the HIV
medicines that were invented before the WTO and the subsequent globalizatio=
n
of patents =BB explains Dr Yusuf Hamied, CEO of Cipla (6). =AB However, if =
the
Doha Declaration remains unused, generic manufacturers like us will be
unable to make affordable versions of the latest HIV innovations =AD for
instance the very promising integrase inhibitors =AD because such recent
medicines are now globally patented =BB.

At the Gleneagles summit in 2005, the leaders of the G8 countries committed
to reaching universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010. Their first order o=
f
business to reach their new goal should be to remove all blockages to the
flow of affordable medicines in developing countries. Act Up-Paris calls on
G8 leaders to declare the WTO agreement on intellectual property no longer
applicable to essential health products in developing countries.

Contact : Khalil Elouardighi =AD Act Up-Paris =AD +33 6 63 15 38 82

1. www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_trips_e.htm
2. www.who.int/hiv/amds/patents_registration/drs/and
www.actupparis.org/article2778.html
3. www.who.int/hiv/toronto2006/FS_Treatment_en.pdf
4. Pedro Chequer, chequerp@unaids.org, +54 11 4314 2376; statement
www.actupparis.org/article2778.html
5. Yusuf Hamied, corporate@cipla.com, +91 98 2029 8765; statement
www.actupparis.org/article2778.html


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