BANGKOK, July 14 (AFP) - A transatlantic patent row heated up Wednesday as Europe said America's drive for bilateral trade pacts was a "danger" that could erode a vital pact to provide cheap HIV drugs to developing nations.
The head of the European Union's delegation to the 15th International AIDS Conference urged Washington to adhere to a 2001 agreement reached through the World Trade Organization (WTO) rather than pursue independent deals with developing nations.
On Tuesday, French President Jacques Chirac fired a veiled attack on the United States for these bilateral agreements, which beef up protection for pharmaceutical products.
Making countries drop measures to let poor AIDS-ravaged countries bypass international patent obligations, thus enabling them to buy cheap copycat "generic" drugs, would be tantamount to "blackmail," Chirac said.
He did not mention the United States by name, but his target was clear, and the speech, made on behalf of Chirac by French Development Minister Xavier Darcos, was warmly received.
"The message by Chirac represented very much the message from Europe in general," Lieve Fransen, head of the human and social development unit of the European Commission, told AFP Wednesday in an interview.
"There is a danger that the US would go into major bilateral trade agreements that don't follow the agreements that we have all made in Doha," at WTO talks launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, she said.
"We are fully convinced that we need to go in a multilateral way and not bilateral trade agreements and that we need to make everything possible so that prices are accessible for the poorest settings.
"That includes putting public health issues to the foreground rather than IP (intellectual property) protection."
Some 38 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS, including six million who the UN says urgently need treatment.
The 2001 Doha pact broke the grip of the pharmaceutical giants on anti-HIV drugs, and has helped drive down the cost of frontline treatments in developing countries from more than 10,000 dollars per year to a dollar a day or less.
"Big Pharma" had fought hard against the deal, describing generics makers as counterfeiters whose activities sapped the profit motive that drove innovative lab research.
Six nations facing serious HIV/AIDS epidemics -- Brazil, China, Nigeria, Russia, Ukraine, and Thailand -- have agreed a landmark pact to endorse the Doha declaration and up production of low-cost, generic versions of the drugs, officials said here.
The agreement aims to help as many as 10 million people suffering from HIV/AIDS and need medicine in those countries.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also took issue with Washington, asking it to show the same commitment to the battle against AIDS as the war on terror and saying it had not lived up to its promises.
Washington defended its effort to fight the AIDS scourge, with the State Department saying the efforts the United States was making on the HIV front "far surpasses that of any other nation."
President George W. Bush has pledged 15 billion dollars over five years to fight AIDS, but mainly through bilateral arrangements with countries rather than the Global Fund, the multinational anti-AIDS war chest.
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