The metal mining industry employs about 15% of formally employed workers in Zambia, but there is little information about the magnitude of occupational injuries among the miners. This paper aimed to determine the frequency rates of occupational injuries and fatalities among copper miners in Zambia. A retrospective study of occupational injuries and fatalities at one of the largest copper mining companies in Zambia was undertaken for the period January 2005 to May 2007. In the selected period, 165 injuries and 20 fatalities were recorded. The most common cause of fatal injuries was fall of rock in the underground mines. The most frequent mechanism of injury was handling of tools and materials, and the most commonly injured body parts were the hands and fingers. The fatality rate is high compared to reported values from the metalliferous mining industry in developed countries, strongly suggesting that measures should be taken to reduce risks, particularly at underground sites.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
This paper outlines the challenges facing environmental and occupational health and safety in Tanzania. It is mainly focused on challenges facing the growth of environmental and occupational health and safety based on chemicals’ management. Environmental and occupational health and safety was found to be very weak, largely due to lack of awareness, high level of illiteracy, weakness in the enforcement of environmental laws, and lack of environmental departments in small and large-scale enterprises. Other challenges include misdistribution of worldwide collaborating centres for World Health Organization/International Labour Organization joint efforts and standards that are not focusing on the safety and health of workers. Recommended strategies include the provision and access to information on safe handling of chemicals, training programmes for environmental health and safety, hazard and accident prevention techniques, risk and safety assessments, and promoting cleaner technologies. There should be an emphasis on development of proper materials safety data sheets based on targeted audience, cost-benefit analysis and auditing of environmental and occupational health and safety.
At a panel discussion on Africa-EU relations organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on 8 July 2009, participants discussed four scenarios for ongoing economic partnership agreements in West Africa, ranging from a full liberalisation agreement on all trade in goods and services, to no agreement whatsoever. While European Commission representatives favoured full liberalisation, regional stakeholders called for a partial, phased liberalisation, covering only trade in goods. This approach would provide greater flexibility for national and regional trade policy, protect local agricultural and industrial sectors, and facilitate regional integration. Participants also discussed the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) process. They noted that respect for JAES’s fundamental principles such as ‘treating Africa as one’ and ensuring the ‘harmonisation of existing policy frameworks’ will be more effective than emphasising ‘functional deliverables’ only.
Aid for Trade is an initiative that started in 2005 through the WTO framework in recognition of the fact that developing countries lack the basic infrastructure and capacity to take advantage of the market access opportunities resulting from trade negotiations – normal aid programmes have not been able to deal with these. This second global review aimed to evaluate the progress of the initiative and implemention on the ground. It says the initiative has achieved remarkable progress in a short time, as partner countries are mainstreaming trade in their development strategies and clarifying their needs and priorities, and donors are improving aid for trade delivery and scaling up resources. In 2007, aid for trade grew by more than 10% in real terms and total new commitments from bilateral and multilateral donors reached US$25.4 billion, with an additional US$27.3 billion in non-concessional trade-related financing. But maintaining the momentum will be difficult in this current economic recession, and that the quantity and the quality of aid, including aid for trade, are now more important than ever for economic growth and human welfare.
The World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) committee on the protection of indigenous knowledge, expressions and genetic resources failed to reach consensus on future work at their meeting held from 29 June to 3 July, effectively postponing the issue till the WIPO General Assemblies in September. The mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) expires this year and deciding the next mandate of the group was the key task at the meeting. Some countries wanted to see the text of a possible agreement before deciding what kind of form it might take (such as an instrument or a database), while others wanted to set a goal of a legally binding international instrument and then work on its text. Informal consultations are planned in the interim between now and the assemblies in late September, though details are unclear. Whether the committee still had a mandate after the meeting was a point of confusion, though it appears that the mandate may carry until the end of December.
A conference at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), held on 13 and 14 July, explored and clarified the connection between its work and several major public policy issues, ending with a look at public health and food security. The meeting addressed the issue of traditional knowledge. The ‘African renaissance can only be borne on the role of indigenous knowledge systems,’ said Yonah Seleti, director general of South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology. The current intellectual property system fails to protect the knowledge of indigenous people, he said, highlighting his office’s ‘farmer to pharma challenge’, which is intended to unlock the value in biodiversity and traditional medicines. But this means that intellectual property (IP) must be seen as having environmental and social benefits, as well as economic ones. Collaborative research between traditional knowledge and modern medicine can yield great public health benefits, but IP agreements must find ways to protect traditional knowledge.
Many people in developing countries lack access to health technologies. This paper presents seven findings about processes that shape access, based on analysis of six case histories: praziquantel to treat schistosomiasis (a parasitic worm disease), hepatitis B vaccine, the Norplant contraceptive, malaria rapid diagnostic tests, vaccine vial monitors and the female condom. Each case study is assessed with a comprehensive framework that examines the effects of architecture, availability, affordability and adoption on creating access. The analysis shows that access to health technology in poor countries is difficult to achieve because of multiple obstacles, but it can be created under certain conditions.
In response to the report by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on their high-level meeting held from 6–9 July in Geneva, Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, who spoke on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, said the international community should not let the patent holders deny the right to health. Patent holders should not ‘seek to restrain and unreasonably impose measures that affect the supply chain of medicines and transfer of technology relating to health products.’ Mike Boyd, acting director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, asserted that pharmaceutical industry made a very significant contribution to helping achieve the health-related UN Millennium Development Goals. International cooperation should be improved in order to ensure access to affordable, good quality and effective medicines, said Maria Nazareth Farani Azevedo of Brazil. Intellectual property rights play a determinant role in the access, affordability, innovation, local production, and trade, she said, adding that member states should resolve the intellectual property agenda.
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Development Round was meant to rebalance decades of unfair rules in agriculture and address the needs of developing countries. Instead, the negotiations have betrayed this promise. It has become a ‘market access’ negotiation, in which developing countries are expected to give disproportionately more and will receive little but stale promises of the general benefits of liberalisation. In order to put the Doha Round back on the ‘development’ track, Oxfam recommends that WTO members take actions to: improve the process of negotiations to make them more transparent and inclusive; ensure special and differential treatment for developing countries; promote development by enabling the realization of rights, such as the right to food, ensuring that trade rules respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people first; and strengthen the WTO as an institution to build greater confidence in its ability to achieve fairer trade rules for developing countries.
Pharmaceutical companies are manipulating the intellectual property rights system and are ‘actively trying to delay the entry of generic medicines onto their markets,’ a top EU official has said. As a result, there has been a decline in the number of innovative medicines getting to the market. The European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, has announced that the first antitrust case resulting from the inquiry is now open. It alleges breaches of European rules on ‘restrictive business practices’ and ‘abuse of a dominant market position,’ and is filed against French company Les Laboratoires Servier and five generics with which it had made deals, according to a separate press release. The slowdown in novel medicines entering the market – 27 annually since 2000 as compared to 40 annually between 1995 and 1999 – was a systemic problem and the causes need to be identified.