[Ip-health] Thai News Agency: Thailand, Brazil to sign health cooperation agreement

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=3D29477

Thailand, Brazil to sign health cooperation agreement

BANGKOK, May 20 (TNA) - Thailand and Brazil =96 both have used World
Trade Organization provisions to override drug patents held by
international pharmaceutical giants =96 have agreed to sign a health
cooperation agreement in Brazil in mid-August, Thai Minister of Public
Health Mongkol Na Songkhla said Sunday.

Attending the 60th World Health Assembly in Switzerland, Dr. Mongkol
told journalists that he had discussed the issue with his Brazilian
counterpart Joze Gomez Temperao and reached an agreement that the two
countries would cooperate on health development as well as on
manufacturing medicines, including vaccines for influenza.

Brazil receives medical technology from Sanofi-Aventis while Thai
vaccines for treating influenza are based on technology from China and
technical support from the World Health Organization, he said.

The upcoming cooperation will benefit Thailand greatly and should lead
to further trade and other activities in future, Dr. Mongkol said.

On Thailand's domestic front, he said, US-based Merck Sharp & Dohme
will join another round of talks with Thai health officials in Bangkok
and if negotiations go smoothly, Thai patients with sufficient income
would gain access to the company's drugs at cheaper prices.

In January, Thailand's Ministry of Public Health issued a compulsory
licensing order for the heart disease drug Plavix, made by
Bristol-Myers Squibb, as well as Sanofi-Aventis and Abbott
Laboratories' Kaletra to treat HIV/AIDS, after a similar action
regarding another AIDS drug, Efavirenz, was effected against Merck last
November.

Dr. Mongkol said earlier that Thailand's annual health budget this year
totals Bt170 billion, or 12 per cent of the national budget. Of this,
Bt3.8 billion would be spent on treating people with HIV/AIDS alone.

According to WHO data, Thailand's total per capita expenditure on
health was US$293 in 2004 while the country's total expenditure on
health in 2004 was 3.5 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product
in the same year. (TNA) - E111



---------------------------------
Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@keionline.org