[Ip-health] South Africa: 'WTO Rules Do Little for Drug Access'

[Manon Ress]

South Africa: 'WTO Rules Do Little for Drug Access'

http://allafrica.com/stories/200611130740.html

Business Day (Johannesburg)
November 13, 2006
Posted to the web November 13, 2006
Siseko Njobeni
Johannesburg

INTERNATIONAL development and relief agency Oxfam called on the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) on Friday to review the effect of its
intellectual property agreement, saying it had done little to open up
access to lifesaving medicines.

The WTO patent provisions on health have been a bone of contention
between rich and developing countries that have been hit hard by HIV/
AIDS.

WTO members agreed on the intellectual property rules and health
declaration at a 2001 Doha ministerial meeting.

In terms of the public health safeguards, developing countries can
access generic versions of patented medicines. Nongovernmental
organisations have supported this initiative.

"Generic competition is the most sustainable way to keep prices of
medicines down," Oxfam said in a statement on Friday.

In a report published on Friday, Oxfam said developed countries had
done little to effect the safeguards.

"Rich countries have broken the spirit of the Doha declaration.

"We have gone backwards. People are still suffering and dying
needlessly," Oxfam's Celine Charveriat said.

Oxfam said 77% of Africans had no access to AIDS treatment, while 30%
of the world's population did not have regular access to essential
medicines.

"There are many reasons for this but the most important is that rich
countries, particularly the US, are bullying developing countries to
impose stricter intellectual property rules in order to preserve
pharmaceutical monopolies. This is restricting generic competition
and keeping prices high, it said.
"Developing countries have a responsibility to use public health
safeguards but when they try to do so, they are put under huge
pressure," Oxfam said.

Oxfam said, in its free trade agreement negotiations with developing
countries, the US insisted on what the organisation said were
stricter-than-usual intellectual property rules.

"Global health statistics are grim but the US continues to negotiate
trade deals with even stricter rules that limit how a country can use
public health safeguards," Charveriat said.


************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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