E-drug: Letter to the Delegates to the WTO
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Dear e-druggers,
hereby a letter from the International Association of Mutual Health
Funds to the Delegates to the WTO gathering in Geneva.
Sincerely yours
Philippe Swennen
Dr Philippe Swennen
Project Manager
AIM
Rue d'Arlon, 50
B-1000 Brussels Belgium
Phone: +322 234 57 04
Fax: +322 234 57 08
"Philippe Swennen" <philippe.swennen@aim-mutual.org>
Visit our Website !!!
www.aim-mutual.org
Brussels, February 7, 2003
To the WTO Delegates
Geneva Switzerland
Open Letter on the WTO TRIPS Agreements
Dear Delegates to the WTO,
We are writing you on behalf of AIM to ask you to find on February 10
and 11, 2003 a sustainable solution to the paragraph 6 of the DOHA
Declaration of November 14, 2001 on TRIPS and public health, namely
how to grant to the countries which do not have the capacities of
manufacturing themselves the generic drugs, the right to buy them
from other countries manufacturing them.
You were very clear-sighted in Doha in 2001 and we ask you to remain
in the spirit of the Doha Declaration which in its paragraph 4 founds
the primacy of public health over commercial interests and in
particular the promotion of access to medicines for all.
The universal right to health implies inter alia to allow developing
countries to have access to drugs of quality at an affordable price,
on a basis that respects the legitimate interests of all parties in
sustaining adequate supplies.
It is the message of the AIM Montevideo Declaration of March 2001 on
the universalization and the health care, where it affirms that the
objectives of general interest must prevail on the private commercial
interests.
The stake is clear: you have the life of millions of people in your
hands. Concerning AIDS e.g., nearly 42 million people do not have
access to drugs which would enable them to remain in life. However
the great majority of the most affected countries are not able to
produce themselves these drugs.
The WTO members must thus allow as fast as possible, the ones to
produce, to sell and export generics, the others to import them in
necessary quantities and as soon as possible.
You should keep in mind that one cannot limit to some diseases a
public health policy laid down to improve the access to drugs for
all. We estimate that the solution to apply article 30 of the TRIPS
agreements which speak about limited exemption, is the simplest and
the most compatible proposal with the public health principle, to
solve the question of the paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration. This
solution will give to the WTO Members a fast authorization, as the
Doha declaration requires it, to make it possible to manufacture, to
sell and export medicines and other health technologies protected by
patents in order to better satisfy their health needs.
Besides this proposal joined that of the European Parliament in his
amendment 196 of the European pharmaceutical legislation review:
"Manufacturing shall be allowed if the medicinal product is intended
for export to a third country that has issued a compulsory licence
for that product, or where a patent is not in force and if there is a
request to that effect of the competent public health authorities of
that third country".
As WHO underlines it, "the basic public health principle is clear:
the people of a country which does not have the capacity for domestic
production of a needed product should be no less protected by
compulsory licensing provisions (or indeed other TRIPS safeguards),
nor should they face any greater procedural hurdles, compared to
people who happen to live in countries capable of producing the
product".
Sincerely yours,
Ron Hendriks
AIM President
About AIM
AIM is the international association of mutual health funds. It
groups at the time som 45 national federations of mutual health funds
in 32 countries around the world. Mutual health funds provide social
cover against sickness and other social risks to more than155 million
people worldwide, either by taking part in the administration of
compulsory health insurance, by providing voluntary health insurance
or by delivering directly health care and social services through own
facilities.
AIM's goal is to defend and promote, at international and European
level, the social values and basic principles shared by its members:
access to health care as a fundamental right, solidarity and
non-exclusion as essential means to ensure this access to quality
health care for all, irrespective of health status or financial
capacity to pay; finally, autonomous management and non profit
orientation as guiding principles for health insurance based upon the
needs of citizens.
AIM positions, requiring validation through its own statutory
decision-making process, do not commit necessarily all its individual
member organisations. Therefore, AIM involvement does not detract its
member organisations from taking dissentient views.
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