Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - March 7, 2001
At the centre of the legal battle is the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendments Act enacted in 1997. The law authorises two practices: parallel imports, which allow importers to buy drugs from the cheapest sources available regardless of whether they have consent from patent holders, and compulsory licensing, which permits the government to license companies to produce cheap versions of drugs whose patents are held by foreign companies.
The drug companies, including global giants Glaxo Wellcome, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Merck and Roche, are arguing that the law is a clear threat to their multi-billion-dollar Aids production and sales operations. They are arguing that the law contravenes South Africa's Patent Act and the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights.
Pretoria is faced with an Aids epidemic and a shortage of funds to treat the many HIV/Aids sufferers. It hopes the law will allow it to make available affordable generic Aids drugs. It is arguing that the law is central to its constitutional duty to provide people marginalised under apartheid with decent healthcare. It also is arguing that the law conforms to the World Trade Organisation's rules on patent rights.
The case is a litmus test on the ability of the world's richest drug companies to protect their patent rights against a government desperately seeking an affordable way to fight Aids. A statement by aid organisations Oxfam and Medicins Sans Frontieres reads as follows: "This legal challenge is a warning to other developing countries that many within the world's pharmaceutical industry will use any tactic to defend their patents whatever the cost in human suffering."The outcome of this landmark case will have tremendous repercussions for Thailand, which faces a similar predicament to South Africa. Thailand has about a million HIV/Aids sufferers and an ailing economy which seems unable to recover, and so the government has managed to allocate only 240 million baht this year to buy Aids drugs. This is only enough to treat a select group of 1,500 patients. Almost all the other one million people infected with the deadly disease, mostly poor labourers and farmers who cannot afford the expensive brand-name Aids drugs, will go without any medication this year. Many of them are condemned to die.
Aids activists are finding their voice in demanding that the government, in particular the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, purchase or produce cheaper generic drugs to address the needs of the Aids afflicted, especially the poor. This is something the government must explore if it wishes to save lives, which is far more rewarding than being held hostage by profiteering drug companies.
In the meantime, efforts must be stepped up to educate the people, especially our youth and the poorly-educated, about safe sex and how to protect themselves from disease. For whatever reason, the Aids awareness campaign which so dominated television and radio broadcasts for a while has now largely disappeared.
The policy of drug companies of putting profits before the lives of the 30 million people worldwide living with HIV/Aids is appalling. Clearly, there is a need for review. The price of their drugs must be reduced to reasonable levels, levels which are affordable to all, or most, who are in need of them.
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