E-DRUG: SC open letter to UN SG, WHO, WTO, WIPO, UCDH
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Released on 4 April at 18.00 Geneva time
COVID-19 PANDEMICS: ACCESS TO PREVENTION AND TREATMENT IS A MATTER OF NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY.
Open letter from Carlos Correa,
Executive Director of the South Centre
to
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization
- Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property
Organization
- Roberto Acevedo, Director General of the World Trade Organization
Rights
Dear colleagues,
The unprecedented global health crisis caused by COVID-19 represents a
global challenge to the essential security interests of all countries.
As stated by the WHO Constitution 'the health of all peoples is fundamental to the
attainment of peace and security and is dependent upon the fullest
co-operation of individuals and States.'
Ensuring access to health should be a priority for all governments and
international organizations. Every other human endeavour, however important
it may seem, must be subordinated to the need of preserving and protecting
human life. The rights to health and life are fundamental human rights. The
available figures on infection and mortality show that this pandemics is
having a devastating effect. The most vulnerable are those living in
developing and least developed countries with weak health systems. Millions
depend on the income they get everyday, and for whom the option of
confinement poses a dramatic dilemma: to face the risk of contagion or
starvation.
Access to affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics and to medical
equipment, and to the technologies to produce them, is indispensable to
treat COVID-19. Such technologies should be broadly available to
manufacture and supply what is needed to address the disease. Any
commercial interest supported by the possession of intellectual property
rights on those technologies must not take precedence over saving lives and
upholding human rights. This should always be the case, but this premise is
often overlooked in times where asymmetries in development and inequality
are deemed to be normal facts.
In this connection, I wish to recall that in accordance to the 'Security
exception' contained in article 73 of the Agreement on Trade-related
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), any WTO member can take the
'actions it considers necessary for the protection of its essential
security interests'. The use of this exception will be fully justified to
procure medical products and devices or to use the technologies to
manufacture them as necessary to address the current health emergency.
Dear colleagues, I am appealing to you, in your capacity as Director
Generals of the three organizations, to support developing and other
countries, as they may need, to make use of article 73(b) of the TRIPS
Agreement to suspend the enforcement of any intellectual property right
(including patents, designs and trade secrets) that may pose an obstacle to
the procurement or local manufacturing of the products and devices
necessary to protect their populations.
We need to have the courage to change course. The resource gap in
addressing the health crisis is huge and health inequality is probably the
most unbearable of injustices. It will be a matter of rebuilding a world
that is viable, the one we are leaving behind, was not.
Carlos Correa
Executive Director
South Centre
Dr. Germán Velásquez*
Special Adviser, Policy and Health
17-19 Chemin du Champ d'Anier
1211 Geneva 19
SWITZERLAND
gvelasquez.gva@gmail.com