Health
/Trade and Regional Integration
- Wed Jul 09 2003
Rangarirai Machemedze
The Doha-mandated deadline for WTO members to come up with a solution to public health crises exacerbated by unaffordable patented drugs has expired. With only three months to go before the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, nothing is expected to materialize before the conference.
When the US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick met representatives of the US pharmaceutical industry in April this year, hopes were raised in the international community, particularly in developing countries who viewed the meeting as a way forward in breaking the impasse in the WTO over how to provide developing countries with access to affordable generic drugs.
It is now six months since the Doha-mandated deadline for WTO members to come up with a solution to public health crises exacerbated by unaffordable patented drugs expired on 31 December 2002. With only three months left before the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, nothing is expected to materialize before the conference.
Hopes were pinned on the US compromising on its earlier decision to limit the scope of diseases but nothing came out of the meeting attended by Zoellick. In fact, industry representatives last year had pressurised Zoellick to reject a proposal that would be open-ended in terms of allowing developing countries (with or without limited manufacturing capacity) to grant compulsory licences for the manufacture and importation of generic drugs to combat a variety of health problems. This made the US government issue a moratorium reflecting the concerns of the pharmaceutical industries, which strictly limits the number of diseases covered by these new flexibilities. Read more…
Source: Seatini
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