AEGiS-AP: Talks on cheap drugs for poor countries go down to the wire

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Talks on cheap drugs for poor countries go down to the wire

Associated Press - December 20, 2002
Naomi Koppel, Associated Press Writer

GENEVA - All eyes were on the hard-line position of the United States Friday as negotiators went down to the wire in talks to ensure better access to cheap medicines for poor countries.

With this week as the final chance to conclude months of emotional wrangling, Washington is the only country that has openly refused to accept a draft agreement to allow some developing countries to ignore patents on drugs to treat diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria.

World Trade Organization nations gathered as planned Friday to try to settle the issue.

But after a morning meeting of just five minutes, the Mexican chairman Eduardo Perez Motta suspended the session, saying more time was needed for consultations with members.

"It would be a bad signal to fail," he said.

The delegates reconvened at 5 p.m., but ended the session immediately and decided to meet three hours later.

Although the United States generally supports the proposal, it wants to limit the scope to epidemics of infectious diseases and not let developing countries use it to gain cheap access to drugs for conditions like asthma, diabetes or smoking-related illnesses.

"We remain committed to both the intention and the spirit and we will work with other delegations," U.S. Ambassador Linnet Deily said.

In a compromise proposal, some WTO members have suggested adding a clause to the agreement saying 15 specific diseases would be covered ù not only HIV/AIDS and malaria but also tropical diseases that hit continents like Africa hard.

Developing countries, however, said they would be unhappy with any restrictions.

"From our point of view we aren't ready to pay a price for an agreement," said Brazilian diplomat Antonio de Aguiar Patriota. "I

don't think developing countries are ready to accept that because it is a restrictive reading of something that has already been settled at ministerial level."

Out of 144 WTO members, the current draft "already has the support of 143," he said.

The WTO had given itself until the end of the year to settle the issue, which almost led to the failure of talks to launch a new trade round one year ago in Doha, Qatar. With the WTO closed over Christmas and New Year, Friday was seen as the last possible chance.

"It's up to the United States now," European Union Ambassador Carlo Trojan told reporters after the end of the last negotiating session, on Tuesday.

If the meeting breaks up without agreement, it could seriously jeopardize talks in other areas of the round, which face a series of tight deadlines in the early part of 2003. Developing countries are unlikely to agree on any other issues until the drug problem has been settled.

The ministerial meeting in Qatar in November last year recognized the right of WTO members to override patents on expensive Western drugs and make the products themselves when public health is at stake.

However, drugs made under such "compulsory licensing" were to be used only domestically and not exported. That meant that the huge majority of developing nations that have no drug industry were unable to benefit because they could neither make the drugs they needed nor import them.

Developing countries, led by South Africa and Brazil, reluctantly accepted the declaration rather than collapse the talks to launch the round. In return, the WTO was instructed to solve the problem by the end of this year.

Most diplomats have said that no further changes to the text are possible without destroying months of negotiation and that the United States must "take it or leave it."

Lobbyists supporting developing countries as well as those supporting U.S. drug companies have both called for the rejection of the agreement as falling short of what is needed.

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