E-drug: Resolution on Revised Drug Strategy adopted at WHA
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Dear Readers,
Late yesterday, the WHA committee working on drug policy adopted a
compromise resolution on the Revised Drug Strategy (now to be called the
WHO Medicines Strategy). The resolution was a text jointly proposed by
Brazil and Sweden (on behalf of the EU). Some key parts of Brazil's
original text were watered down in the final approved version.
For example, the approved text includes the paragraph:
Urges member states:
"to reaffirm their commitment to ensuring public health interests and to
make every effort to promote equitable access to medicines, and to
undertake necessary action within their national health policies..."
While the original Brazilian resolution stated:
Urges member states:
"to ratify resolution 2001/33 of the Commission on Human Rights, to
reaffirm their commitment to public health interests, and to undertake
necessary action within their national health policies to ensure equitable
access to medicines;
and
"to guarantee access to medicines in the context of priority diseases and
pandemics, such access being considered a fundamental human right under
international law...."
A request to the Director General to explore the feasibility and
effectiveness of implementing systems to monitor drug prices and to report
global drug prices with a view to improve equity in access to essential
drugs in health systems has now been made voluntary, which will
substantially weaken its effect.
A call to have WHO provide enhanced support to member states to achieve the
priorities set out in the WHO Medicines Strategy has now been limited to
those countries that "need and request support", another seeming attempt to
weaken WHO's mandate to assist countries.
Finally, a clause requesting the DG to provide support to member states to
set up efficient regulatory mechanisms for quality assurance is now limited
to "national regulatory mechanisms".
During the debate on the issue, Zafar Mirza made a statement on behalf of
HAI and Consumers International urging WHO to take a stronger leadership
role in helping member states increase and sustain access to needed drugs.
Below you will find the full text of that statement. Additional material
about the debate will be available on the HAI website shortly at
http://www.haiweb.org/news/news.html
Best wishes,
Lisa Hayes
HAI Europe
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Agenda Item 13.8 Revised drug Strategy
Consumers International Statement to 54th WHA
Mr. Chairman, honourable delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
I am speaking on behalf of Consumers International and Health Action
International. This statement is also endorsed by Medecins Sans Frontieres
and World Council of Churches.
During her speech to this assembly the Director General stated that action
is needed now and that the window of opportunity to improve global health
may close at any time. We agree that urgent action is needed not only for
keeping that window open but expanding it. We also believe that WHO must
take a central role in this action. Dr Brundtland mentioned that WHO's role
is not to take advocacy positions and sides in all debates about crucial
health issues being raised by civil society today. However, we think that
issue of access to essential drugs is one where WHO cannot and should not
be neutral. It has to take sides, visibly and loudly, with the poor who are
being denied access to essential health care. WHO has to take a lead in
taking and coordinating intensified global action to meet the unmet
treatment needs of the billions of poor. It is an ongoing public health
emergency which bring into question the credibility of the present global
market system.
Access to basic health care is a fundamental human right and unhindered
access to needed medicines is a most important component of this right.
This has been highlighted in the recent General Comment on Health by the UN
High Commission on Human Rights.
The Director General talks of the health divide. But to bridge this health
divide we need sustainable not ad-hoc solutions. In the case of access to
medicines we need to rely on serious implementation of national health
policies and national drug policies based on the essential drugs concept
and public health sensitive patent laws with in-built safeguards like
compulsory licensing, parallel importing and early introduction of
generics. We also need to rethink the sufficiency of these safeguards. We
need to move away from the country-to-country, company-to-company and
drug-to-drug negotiated solutions for drug price discounts, witnessed in
recent months, to more reliable, sustainable, policy-based measures by the
national governments. The international community has a moral obligation
and WHO has even a constitutional responsibility to support such national
efforts, which are the only guarantee for bridging the current health
divide.
Developing countries face immense overt and covert pressures from rich
countries when they try to protect public health in their national patent
laws. We are pleased to hear that the current US Administration has
publicly reaffirmed the decision to end trade sanctions pressures on
developing countries and that the European Parliament has publicly
supported countries right to use the safeguards.
In this statement I specifically want to highlight the following three
points:
1. The adoption of the Revised Drug Strategy resolution by the WHA in 1999
(WHA52.19) marked a major turning point in WHO's work on access to
medicines. Through this resolution Member States explicitly expanded the
Organization's mandate to include monitoring and analysing the public
health implications of trade agreements, specifically TRIPs, and supporting
Member States in addressing concerns about the effects of these agreements
on access to medicines. In the Revised Drug Strategy report prepared for
this Assembly, WHO describes the progress it has made in addressing this
crisis. We think that such WHO reporting should be a regular agenda item at
every WHA. The time has come for WHO to take on a much more proactive and
visible role in this crucial area. Much more technical assistance needs to
be provided by WHO to the poor countries. WHO must strongly advocate for
public health concerns at the upcoming WTO TRIPs Council meeting and try to
rise above the level of being just !
an observer in this important public health debate. WHO also needs to be
strengthened in its capacity so that it can support countries in much more
active and effective way.
2. The discussion about differential pricing needs a broader perspective.
Recently, WHO and WTO jointly hosted a meeting in Norway to discuss
differential pricing and how differential pricing can lead to affordable
prices. We think that this meeting has failed to achieve any concrete
results as yet. Moreover, we think that the differential pricing system
will not be enough to achieve the goal of equity pricing. Yes, differential
pricing is important but only as a part of a more comprehensive system that
includes generic competition, pooled procurement and distribution, local
production through voluntary licensing, technology transfer, and donor
support. In short, medicines will not be made affordable through one single
strategy. Rather, a combination of mutually supportive measures is
required. Drug prices is another area requiring WHO's clear leadership and
support to the member countries.
3. We applaud WHO's effort to strengthen the essential drugs list by
reviewing and revising the procedures involved in its development. The
Essential Drugs List remains one of the most important public health tools.
We welcome this initiative to make the Essential Drug List more inclusive,
transparent, and to ensure that safe and effective drugs are not excluded
on the basis of their cost alone.
In closing, to repeat the Director General's words, action is needed NOW.
As we speak Mr. Chairman thousands of patients are dying in the developing
countries for want of treatment. In many cases the treatments are
available. People are dying not because they are sick but simply because
they are poor and cannot buy life-saving medicines. States are not able to
serve them well and the private sector is not sensitive to their needs.
They do not benefit from the advances of the medical science. This is the
greatest tragedy of our times and a collective "action is needed now".
Thank you.
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