[Ip-health] IP Watch: WHO Members Make Informal Progress On Plan Of Action As Executive Board Opens

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=3D1397

Intellectual Property Watch
20 January 2009
WHO Members Make Informal Progress On Plan Of Action As Executive
Board Opens

By Kaitlin Mara
A small, diverse group of member states meeting informally over the
weekend were able to resolve questions of which institutions should be
actors in a broader plan of action for the implementation of the World
Health Organization Global Strategy on Public Health, Innovation, and
Intellectual Property, according to sources. The informal agreement
increases the likelihood of consensus when the document is discussed
at the WHO Executive Board meeting this week, they said.

The informal meeting immediately proceeded the Executive Board (EB)
meeting, which advises and makes recommendations to the WHO=92s decision-
making body, the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) in May. The EB is
taking place between 19 and 27 January.

The text produced on Sunday is available here: http://www.ip-watch.org/file=
s/action_plan_added_after_meeting_18_1_.01.doc

The global strategy was the endpoint of a series of discussions and
working groups begun in 2003, when WHO first began to explore the
relationship between public health and innovation, in particular
innovation on medical products related to diseases that
disproportionately affect the developing world. Intellectual property
protection, and its influence as an incentive for innovation and in
determining prices of medical products, was necessarily a key
component of the discussions and the final strategy.

The plan of action was not finalised at the close of the WHA in May
2008, and the WHO Director General was tasked with finishing several
unfinished components, in particular indicators of progress for the
strategy=92s implementation, funding needs, and relevant stakeholders.
The plan matches specific actions with stakeholder groups meant to
carry them out.

A major decision made at the informal meeting on Sunday, 18 January
was the inclusion of the WHO as a stakeholder at the same level of
other international organisations - including the World Intellectual
Property Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the UN
Conference on Trade and Development - on matters of the global
strategy relating to intellectual property, a source explained to
Intellectual Property Watch.

Also key was the removal of the WHO from a separate list of
stakeholders in exploratory discussions on instruments or mechanisms
for essential health and biomedical research and development,
including a possible treaty on those issues. The agreed stakeholders
for the possible treaty are interested governments, and other relevant
organisations including NGOs.

On the issue of access to traditional medicinal knowledge,
intergovernmental institutions, including the WHO, were removed from
the list of stakeholders; governments and concerned communities are
now the listed stakeholders.

The informal group meeting included representatives from Brazil,
Canada, India, Norway, and the United States, and, according to one
source, also China, the European Union and Thailand.

DG Highlights Global Strategy, Counterfeit Drugs During EB Opener

Director General Margaret Chan said during her opening report to the
Executive Board meeting on 19 January that =93we should all welcome the
global strategy and plan of action on public health and intellectual
property,=94 calling it a =93major step forward in addressing long-
standing unmet needs.=94

The strategy demonstrates, Chan added, that =93international agreements
that affect the global trading system can indeed be shaped in ways
that favour health=94 and that R&D can be =93needs-driven as well as
profit-driven.=94

Chan also placed the issue of counterfeit medical products on the same
level as trafficking in human body parts, calling both =93unethical
practices that must be forcefully prevented,=94 that are =93motivated by
greed [and] harm public health.=94

However, she noted concerns raised at the May 2008 WHA that the fight
to combat counterfeit medical products might be conflated with
intellectual property enforcement. Chan said the draft resolution
[pdf] on the issue under consideration by the EB =93explicitly
recognises the need to ensure that combating counterfeit medical
products does not hinder the availability of legitimate, good quality
generic medicines.=94

The concerns of all stakeholders regarding counterfeit medical
products have not yet been assuaged, however (see IPW, WHO, 16 January
2009), and the issue is likely to generate debate when it is addressed
later this week.

Delegates Discuss Avian Flu

Also discussed on 19 January were the results of the December meeting
on pandemic influenza preparedness. The Intergovernmental Meeting on
Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (IPW, WHO, 15 December 2008), which
met from 8-13 December, had concluded with the decision to suspend
talks and resume in May before the next WHA, hoping to complete its
mandate then.

A brief discussion at the EB centred on questions of vaccine
stockpiling and access to both viruses and benefits. The United States
called for the =93rapid, transparent sharing of influenza viruses,=94
adding that it was critical that all member states continue to share
samples related to pandemic influenza - or to resume sharing samples
if they had stopped - even in the interim period between now and
eventual consensus. Niger, on behalf of the 46 member states of the
Africa Region, called pandemic influenza =93an immediate threat to
public health=94 and asked for access to resources to strengthen
capacity in the region to deal with the threat, for technology
transfer, and for international mechanisms for equitable access to
vaccines.

Bangladesh said that vulnerable countries - especially those that have
already suffered an outbreak of the flu =96 should have prioritised
access to vaccines and related benefits, and China said an
international vaccine reserve would =93inject trust and dynamism=94 into
the system of virus and benefit sharing.

The United Kingdom raised the possibility of a more permanent solution
than creating a stockpile of vaccines guarding against H5N1 - the flu
strain most frequently talked about as having pandemic potential - as
a pandemic could arise from a strain unrelated to H5N1 and catch the
world unprepared. The conventional approach to vaccine building
involves a lead time of several months, the UK explained, so =93we end
up chasing it with many deaths having already occurred.=94

A multi-application vaccine is the =93holy grail=94 said a WHO technical
expert, for which there are no clinical trials at present.

Kaitlin Mara may be reached at kmara@ip-watch.ch.


Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney
Knowledge Ecology International / Essential Information
www.keionline.org / www.cptech.org
Phone: +1.202 332 2670, ext 18