This publication affirms the World Health Organization's commitment to continue to work with member states and relevant regional economic integration organisations on the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits. It guarantees to convene the Open-Ended Working Group before the 128th session of the Executive Board and to undertake any necessary technical consultations and studies to support the work of the Open-Ended Working Group in reaching a final agreement.
Health equity in economic and trade policies
Pandemic influenza preparedness: Sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits
Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 19 March 2010
Pandemic preparedness: Creating a fair and equitable influenza virus and benefit sharing system
Shashikant S (ed): Third World Network, 2010
In 2007, world attention was focused on the World Health Organization (WHO) when claims emerged that WHO’s Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) was unfair to the interests and needs of developing countries. According to this book, GISN has failed to deliver fair and equitable benefit-sharing with regard to vaccines, anti-virals and other technologies by not ensuring these products were available at affordable prices to developing countries that were most affected by the influenza outbreak. At the same time, developed countries profited from the virus sharing system by, for example, having timely access to vaccines and making intellectual property (IP) rights claims over shared biological materials and products developed using such materials. Developing countries thus potentially face astronomical bills for the purchase of vaccines and other medical supplies, as well as difficulties in accessing such supplies, due to their limited availability. Latest technologies were also protected by IP rights, creating more obstacles for developing countries that might seek to build their own production capacity. This book provides an in-depth understanding of the background to, and rationale for, the current WHO negotiations on influenza virus and benefit sharing, as well as a front-line view of the negotiations.
Patents impeding medical care and innovation?
Gold ER, Kaplan W, Orbinski J, Harland-Logan S and N-Marandi S: PLoS Med 7(1), January 5, 2010
Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers argue that the current patent system is crucial for stimulating research and development (R&D), leading to new products that improve medical care. The financial return on their investments that is afforded by patent protection, they claim, is an incentive toward innovation and reinvestment into further R&D. But this view has been challenged in recent years. Many commentators argue that patents are stifling biomedical research, for example by preventing researchers from accessing patented materials or methods they need for their studies. Patents have also been blamed for impeding medical care by raising prices of essential medicines, such as antiretroviral drugs, in poor countries. This debate examines whether and how patents are impeding health care and innovation.
The deadly ideas of neoliberalism: How the IMF has undermined public health and the fight against AIDS
Rowden R: Zed Books, 2010
This book explores the history of and current collision between two of the major global phenomena that have characterised the last 30 years: the spread of HIV and other diseases of poverty and the ascendancy of neoliberal economic ideas. The book explains not only how International Monetary Fund policies of restrictive spending have exacerbated public health problems in developing countries, in particular the HIV and AIDS crisis, but also how such issues cannot be resolved under these economic policies. It also suggests how mounting global frustration about this inability to adequately address HIV and AIDS will ultimately lead to challenges to the dominant neoliberal ideas, as other more effective economic ideas for increasing public spending are sought. Rowden offers a unique and in-depth critique of development economics, the political economy dynamics of global foreign aid and health institutions, and how these seemingly abstract factors play out in the real world - from the highest levels of global institutions to African finance and health ministries to rural health outposts in the countryside of developing nations, and back again.
East African anti-counterfeit laws to limit access to ARVs
Michael W: Business Day, 5 April 2010
The author of this article asserts that East African countries risk not attaining the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on universal treatment of people living with HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases if the region’s parliament adopts the draft anti-counterfeit laws currently under consideration. Civil society representatives, government officials and intellectual property experts have warned that the region would not meet this MDG if it adopted the proposed policy and bill, as they would block the production and importation of generic medicines used by health care services to treat diseases. The countries affected are Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. The draft laws could erode recent gains in scaling up treatment of people living with HIV and AIDS, according to Tenu Avafia, policy specialist on intellectual property, trade and HIV and AIDS at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
EU supports law threatening access to medicines
Michael W: Inter Press Service, 15 March 2010
The European Union (EU) is reported to be funding the drafting of Uganda's controversial Counterfeit Goods Bill, a proposed law that has caused an outcry as it threatens access to life-saving generic medicines in this low income East African country. According to the article, about 90% of medicines used in Uganda's health-care system are imported, of which about 93% are generics. According to this article, part of the five million euros that Uganda's ministry on tourism, trade and industry received from the EU in a financing agreement signed in July 2009 was to finance the drafting of this contentious bill that has consistently been criticised as a threat to treatment. The financing agreement is aimed at supporting Uganda's implementation of the economic partnership agreement (EPA) between the EU and East African countries. Health activists have criticised the draft law for defining counterfeiting so broadly as to criminalise the production and importation of generic medicines, including those for HIV and AIDS and malaria. They note that the draft law does not take advantage of the flexibility that Uganda, as a least developed country, has until 2016 before it is obliged to provide patent protection for pharmaceutical products as per the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime of the World Trade Organisation.
EU threatens to withdraw EAC trade preferences if interim EPA not signed
Julian M: Trade Negotiation Insights 9(2): 13–14, March 2010
The head of the European Union (EU) delegation to Tanzania, Ambassador Timothy Clark, says a realistic timetable for signing the East African Community’s (EAC) interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) must be established. Clark said: 'The situation, as it stands now, is untenable. EAC countries, despite not signing the EPA, have been enjoying free access to EU markets in the same way with other African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) countries that took legally binding commitments by signing EPAs. This is inconsistent and contrary to both EU law and World Trade Organization rules.' However, Tanzanian Trade Minister, Mary Nagu, said the EAC wanted firm commitments from the EU on development assistance before it would sign a full agreement, including assistance for infrastructure, such as properly working railways and ports to enable Tanzania to trade. She called for a level playing field for Tanzanian trade, with Tanzania enjoying an equal footing with the EU. She did not see aid as a long-term solution to the country's financial woes. Despite the current situation, withdrawing trade preferences provided to the EAC under the EU’s EPA market access regulation is reported to require a unanimous vote by EU Member States, which may prove politically difficult at present.
Growing threat from counterfeit medicines
World Health Organization: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 247–248, April 2010
Worldwide sales of counterfeit medicines could top US$75 billion this year, a 90% rise in five years, according to this article. The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently working with Interpol to dislodge the criminal networks making billions of dollars from the trade in counterfeit medicines and posing a growing threat to public health. In 2006, the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force (IMPACT) was launched, drawing members from international organisations, enforcement agencies, industry and nongovernmental organisations. Sabine Kopp, IMPACT’s interim executive secretary and manager of WHO’s anti-counterfeiting programme, says that WHO is currently conducting a survey to compare legislation and terminology used to combat counterfeiting of medical products in different countries. It is difficult to measure the extent of the problem when there are so many sources of information and different definitions of 'counterfeit'.
Aid for trade: An opportunity for re-thinking aid for economic growth
Brüntrup M and Voionmaa P: Trade Negotiation Insights 9(2), March 2010
In this article discussing aid for trade (AfT) initiatives between European and African states, the author points out that AfT may be misused, as it aims to integrate developing countries into global markets, which serves the interests of the Western world as they view these African states as (future) trading partners and as drivers of the global trade policy agenda they serve. Another risk of AfT is that it tends to underestimate the potential of domestic markets. For instance, the rapidly growing population and urbanisation in many African countries creates great opportunities for domestic farmers and food industries. The AfT agenda also adds to the increasing number of ‘vertical’ initiatives, such as the fund for HIV and AIDS or infrastructure. This leads to a segmentation of development cooperation, while efforts instead should seek to make aid more flexible by aligning it to developing countries’ priorities without earmarking it in advance for certain thematic issues. For all these reasons, the authors recommend a very careful, transparent and participatory use of the AfT initiative. Trade and AfT are not ends in themselves, but means to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing poverty. Hence, AfT must be embedded in overarching national growth and poverty strategies which balance inward and outward orientation of national economies and ultimately aim to generate resources for social development and poverty reduction.
EU’s win in tough trade deal may set precedent for developing nations
Cronin D: Intellectual Property Watch, 25 February 2010
This piece sends a warning signal on the issue of patenting on trade agreements. Far-reaching provisions on the patenting of medicine have been inserted into a controversial free trade agreement (FTA) between the European Union (EU) and Colombia and Peru. While less ambitious on patenting and with shorter durations of exclusivity than proposals earlier put forward by EU, in the agreement makers of branded drugs will enjoy ‘test data exclusivity’ over the scientific formulae they have used and will be able to delay generic versions of their products from appearing on the market. This data exclusivity will apply for five years, increasing the amount countries spend on medicines in the period, despite high poverty levels. The concern for Africa is that this agreement sets an unfortunate precedent for countries concluding trade agreements with the EU, notably the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group, to avoid such clauses which undermine their efforts to meet the health care needs of their citizens.