GENEVA, Dec 21 (AFP) - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) suffered a setback in the small hours of Saturday when the United States failed to rally around a deal aimed at providing poor countries with better access to life-saving medicines.
Negotiators for the 144 member countries of the WTO admitted after a meeting of the ruling General Council here that they were bitterly disappointed at failing to meet a self-imposed deadline for an agreement before winter holidays.
But they vowed to press on with talks in the new year, and set a new deadline for a meeting scheduled on February 10 to 11, 2003.
The world's trading nations had been trying to hammer out an agreement on a system to relax global patent rules, which would have enabled poorer countries without a pharmaceutical industry to import cheaper generic copies of patented medicines to treat illnesses such as AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria.
Ministers meeting in the Qatari capital Doha in November last year gave the Geneva-based WTO until the end of 2002 to devise a solution to the high-profile problem.
After more than one year of negotiations, and a final intense flurry of behind-the-scenes talks, the United States told the meeting here that it "could not meet the consensus on the issue", according to US ambassador Linnet Deily.
She reiterated US concerns about the scope of illnesses that should be covered by more relaxed patent rules for medicines.
"I have to say there is no way to sugar coat this bitter pill. We are disappointed," said ambassador Sergio Marchi of Canada, who is chairing the TRIPS (WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) council dealing with the public health and patents issue.
"143 countries stood on the same ground, we were hoping to make that unanimous," he said.
"While we're disappointed, we're not disheartened, the cause is just and we need to redouble efforts next year," he added.
Washington says it wants a more specific definition than the one in the draft text, which refers to "public health problems... especially those resulting from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics".
The US is concerned that this formulation could open the way for drugs for non-infectious illnesses such as diabetes or asthma falling under the new regime.
African countries said the fear of abuse of an agreement was "not well founded".
"Any attempt to redefine this declaration will unravel the careful balance achieved on many issues at Doha," Kenyan ambassador Amina Chawahir Mohamed told the meeting.
Diplomats said they expected harsh criticism of the WTO as a whole after their failure to meet a target on a clear humanitarian issue.
Victims of the diseases in developing countries, mainly in Africa, stood to gain the most from an agreement.
On Friday, the WTO also failed to meet a year-end deadline on another issue, highly prized by developing countries, on clarifying special conditions to make it easier for them to implement trade accords.
"Failure to meet deadlines in these negotiations has been quite disappointing," WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi said in a statement.
"These two issues are of great importance not only to developing countries but to the organisation itself and to the broader trade negotiations that are part of the Doha development agenda," he added.
Negotiators admitted they were still finding its hard to strike a balance on the health needs of local communities, the demands of the pharmaceutical industry for adequate profit, and wider international aspirations for fair trade.
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