Inter Press Service - November 16, 2002
Kalinga Seneviratne

At the end Friday of the two-day informal meeting of trade ministers from 25 countries, the governments here confirmed that the issue of poor countries' access to drugs was a "priority" and agreed to work out possible formulas to address this tricky issue.

Australia's Trade Minister Mark Vaile, who chaired the meeting, said that there has been a "convergence of opinions" on the need to achieve a solution by yearend -- the deadline set at the WTO Doha ministerial meeting last year.

"That is a framework that will give access to the poorer countries of the world for much needed medicines to try and address the epidemic (such as) HIV," he said. "This is not an economic issue. This is a moral obligation that needs to be undertaken by the developed world."

Lesotho Trade Minister Mpho Meli Malie, whose country now imports expensive HIV/AIDS medicines from the west, was pleased with the "agreement on a process that would make sure medicines are made available to sub-Saharan countries and other places that have been struck by HIV/AIDS," he said. "I think a lot of progress was made here."

But activists say that judging from the proposals discussed in Sydney for passing on to Geneva, it is too early to say there has been key progress on the issue of poorer countries' access to patented drugs to address public health emergencies.

In November last year, the WTO reached a landmark decision to allow revisions in trade rules to allow developing countries to override drug patents, and make and export cheap generic copies to meet public health needs.

But exactly how these countries would be able to get licences to make generic copies of patented drugs and export them has yet to be worked out, given the debate over what constitutes a public health "crisis".

The Sydney 'mini-summit' was aimed at discussing these unresolved issues, and making proposals to the wider WTO membership in Geneva, where the final decision will be made.

Jeff Atkinson of Oxfam International argues that in Sydney, rich countries pressured the trade ministers of 17 developing countries represented here to accept an unworkable mechanism that is just "political fudge in behind-closed-doors meeting".

In a statement, Oxfam said, the "major problem" in the mechanism discussed in Sydney for giving poorer nations access to badly needed drugs is that "the country supplying cheap generic copies of drugs needed to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and any other disease, would have to agree to override the relevant patent".

"This makes the needy importing country unacceptably dependent on the political will of another government," it argued, not least because potential suppliers could come under pressure from industrialised countries looking after profits.

"Public health should be the guiding principle in making these decisions about access to essential medicines in developing countries," Medecins Sans Frontiers spokeswoman Kathryn Dinh told IPS.

But she expressed concern that in Sydney, "expedient political consensus and pressure" have been brought to bear on developing countries to accept mechanisms that do not fully recognise the serious public health concerns in most poor countries.

"If the proposal is accepted by the wider WTO membership, an insurmountable barrier to getting cheaper medicines is replaced by numerous slower ones," Oxfam and Medicins Sans Frontieres in a statement.

In the end, Vaile said, the final mechanism should allow developing countries access to drugs at affordable rates but also meet concerns about patent protection.

The issue of whether, and how, countries can export the cheaper generic drugs they produce remains complex. There is also debate about what kinds of illnesses would be covered by the relaxing of patent rules - some poor countries want diseases other than HIV/AIDS and TB included, for example.

Pharmaceutical firms and industrialised nations are wary of allowing exports of drugs produced under the relaxed rules, because they fear the medicines would find their way back into wealthy markets. But getting these exported, cheaper drugs is crucial for countries that do not have local pharmaceutical industries to produce the medicines themselves.

Trade ministers said the Sydney discussions were actually quite productive.

Indian Minister for Disinvestment Arun Shourie said during an informal discussion with journalists after the meeting that although some rich countries had apprehensions about allowing poor countries to override patents to produce their own generic drugs, their ministers did not raise it here.

He said that the narrow definition of disease in last year's WTO declaration needs to be changed to reflect the serious public health problems facing poor nations, and to allow for a way to make this judgement for trade purposes.

Although no final decisions were made here, Shouri says that the most useful function of such meetings is for rich and poor countries to exchange their viewpoints. "You get to know other people and they also get to know the depth of concerns of other countries. That is how trust is built up," he added.

The countries that took part in the informal WTO meeting were Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, the European Union, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, United States. (END/IPS/WD/AP/IF/DV/SK/JS/02)

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