Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - November 30, 2006
Apiradee Treerutkuarkul
More than 10,000 people living with HIV/Aids who receive medical treatment through the SSO healthcare scheme are mostly white- and blue-collar workers. Others, including private entrepreneurs and the unemployed, have access to the universal healthcare scheme under the National Health Security Office.
Different healthcare schemes are also designed for civil servants, who are able to get refunds on medical bills from the Comptroller-General's Department.
But unlike the other two healthcare schemes, company employees with HIV/Aids have to pay an additional fee for any Aids treatment that exceeds 5,000 baht a month.
They asked SSO secretary-general Surin Jirawisith to amend the healthcare scheme by revoking co-payment details on the occasion of World Aids Day tomorrow.
The slogan for the World Aids campaign this year remains, "Stop Aids. Keep the Promise", which emphasises the theme of policy-makers keeping their promises, public awareness campaigns and engagement on the Aids problem worldwide.
SSO secretary-general Surin said the SSO board of medical professionals had agreed to revoke the co-payment scheme and the decision would be effective on Jan 1. The Public Health Ministry would apply Article 51 of the Patent Law 1992 to produce a local version of the anti-Aids drug Efavirenz to ease access to costly second-line treatment. "It is legitimate to apply 'compulsory licensing' to save patients' lives," said Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla.
The original version costs about 1,500 baht a month, while the generic version imported from India costs half as much.
Disease Control Department director-general Thawat Sundarajarn said Thailand could resort to compulsory licensing to make the medicine for a period of five years in accordance with the Aug 30, 2003 Doha Declaration on 'Trips', or Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Public Health.
In November 2001, the World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in Doha allowed governments of member countries to override patents through "compulsory licensing" or "parallel imports" as provided for under Trips.
In applying compulsory licensing, the Public Health Ministry is required to pay 0.5% of the drugs' market price to the manufacturers.
The ministry would write to the patent owner Merck as soon as possible, he said.
Lt-Gen Mongkol Jivasantikarn, head of the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, said the agency would import the general version from India for use by January. It would be ready to produce the generic version of Efavirenz by June next year.
However, Paul Cawthorne of Medicins Sans Frontieres reiterated his call for intellectual property rights to be removed from the Thai-US free trade agreement, which is temporarily shelved under the interim government. Any agreement on intellectual property rights would stop the government being able to use the legal mechanism of compulsory licensing, for not only Efavirenz but for other medical regimens necessary for curing serious illnesses.
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