PARIS, Dec 17 (AFP) - A senior French official sharply criticized the US position Tuesday on expanding access for poor countries to life-saving cheap medicines, which he said was holding up a global agreement on the question at the World Trade Organisation.
"Countries that would block an accord based on (a text now before the WTO) would be politically responsible for the failure," said junior commerce minister Fancois Loos in a statement.
"Given the urgency of the health crisis, it is critical that we quickly reach agreement on the essentials," he said.
The United States was still holding out on Monday for wording changes to a text under debate at the WTO in Geneva on the scope of diseases to be covered under an accord on ensuring poor countries access to drugs.
At least 17 other WTO members, including the European Union, told a nearly two-hour meeting in Geneva that despite reservations they could live with a newly tabled draft text, a trade source said.
The current snag stems from the WTO agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), such as patents.
Ministers agreed at a conference in Qatar last year that WTO members had the right to override patents during a public health crisis, such as AIDS, and produce the drugs themselves.
But medicines produced under this system of "compulsory licensing" are supposed to be predominantly for domestic use and not for export.
Consequently, poor countries lacking a pharmaceutical industry would not benefit since they would neither be able to produce the drugs themselves nor import them.
The ministerial meeting in the Qatari capital Doha in November 2001 gave trade delegates until the end of this year to find a solution.
But clear and deep divisions have been apparent among the WTO's membership in recent weeks, including on the scope of diseases that should fall under the new system.
Under the latest draft text, the agreement would cover "HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics", which is the same wording used by ministers in their Doha declaration.
But Washington is insisting on more specific wording, which would refer to the three major diseases as well as "other infectious epidemics of comparable gravity and scale."
The US delegate to the talks told other participants Monday that Washington did not believe illnesses such as asthma, obesity and tobacco-related diseases were part of the problem envisaged in Doha.
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