UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

Chapter 5The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects ofIntellectual Property Rights also paves the way forcheaper drugs125Although 40%of HIV infectionwas attributedto homosexualtransmission inLatin America,less than 20%of public healthexpenditure onAIDS prevention,not includingexpenses on bloodbanks, went towork with thisgroup in 2001.In May 2001, the World Health Assembly adopted two resolutions that had a particularlyimportant bearing on the debate over the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects ofIntellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), a World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement thatprotects patent rights including those for drugs. The first resolution addressed the need tostrengthen policies to increase the availability of generic drugs, and the second addressedthe need to evaluate the impact of TRIPS on access to drugs, local manufacturing capacityand the development of new drugs.Ellen T’Hoen, Director for Policy and Advocacy at Médecins Sans Frontières’ Campaign forAccess to Essential Medicines, commented: ‘Unable to turn a deaf ear to the growing chorusof critics of TRIPS and its effects on access to medicines, the WTO changed course … Thevoices had been heard: public health would now feature as a key subject at the Doha conferenceand the round of trade negotiations that followed’ 24 .An important outcome of the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, inNovember 2001, was the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, ‘a declaration that isconsidered a key victory for developing and least developed countries, principally because itrecognizes the countries’ autonomy to implement the TRIPS Agreement in the best possibleway for public health’ 25 .The Doha Declaration stresses that TRIPS ‘can and should be interpreted and implementedin a manner supportive of WTO members’ right to protect public health and, in particular,to promote access to medicines for all’. The Declaration states explicitly that ‘public healthcrises, including those relating to HIV/AIDS, TB [tuberculosis], malaria and other epidemics,can represent a national emergency’ for which governments can issue a compulsory licenseauthorizing, under certain conditions, the use of patented products’ 26 .T’Hoen cited numerous factors leading up to the Doha Declaration, including: the mobilizationof developing countries, which acted together in a block; the strong pressure frominternational nongovernmental organizations and public opinion expressed in the media;the work of WHO and the UNAIDS Secretariat, and the fact that Canada and the USA hadthreatened to issue a compulsory license against the German company, Bayer, the producerof ciprofloxacin, during the anthrax scare and its use in biological terrorism 27 .24T’Hoen E (2003). ‘TRIPS, pharmaceutical patents and access to essential medicines: Seattle, Doha andbeyond’, in J-P Moatti et al. (eds), Economics of AIDS and Access to HIV/AIDS Care in Developing Countries:Issues and Challenges. Paris, National Agency for AIDS Research.25Ibid.26UNAIDS (2004). UNAIDS Global Report 2004. Geneva, UNAIDS.27T’Hoen (2003).