By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Nov 15 2001 (IPS)

Thailand is in a strong position to test the veracity of a deal struck this week by the world’s trade negotiators that enables developing nations to produce or buy cheaper generic drugs to cope with pandemics devastating a country, like AIDS.

On the one hand, there is AIDS, the leading killer disease in this country of 62 million people.

On the other hand, the Thai government has encouraged the local production of drugs through bodies such as the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO). Currently, the GPO produces a range of cheaper generic drugs, including five required by HIV/AIDS patients, as part of their regular drugs cocktail.

Thailand has over a million people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Authorities say AIDS is expected to kill more than 50,000 Thais annually over the next five years.

“If the GPO can produce the other drugs for HIV patients without the Thai government being penalised by Western governments or threatened with trade sanctions, then this week’s deal benefits the sick in poorer nations,” says Paul Cawthorne, who heads the Thai office of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

The deal that was struck during the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, enables countries ravaged by diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis to side-step the rigid rules that had been laid down by the WTO on pharmaceutical patents.

It also affirms that when developing countries pursue this option — of accessing cheaper generic drugs than the pricey versions marketed by the drug industry giants who have the patents for these medicines — they will not face threats from the West, such as trade sanctions.

“Let’s test those guarantees with a drug called Vitonovir produced by an American pharmaceutical company,” says Cawthorn, whose Brussels-based medical aid agency was part of a group of civil society activists who spearheaded a campaign against the WTO’s rules on patents.

Vitonovir is a key drug in the cocktail of drugs HIV patients take daily as part of their medication. “If the GPO produces generic versions of it without pressure from the United States, then this trade deal is a significant achievement,” adds Cawthorn.

What happened here early this year illustrates the pressure he alludes to, when the United States threatened the Thai government for attempting to shorten the waiting period for production of a generic drug. On that occasion, Washington wanted to place Thailand on a “priority watch,” which would have undermined its trade status.

Oxfam’s Heather Grady also affirms a need to monitor the WTO’s recent guarantees. “It is a political statement, not a legally binding one,” says Grady, East Asia regional director for Oxfam, the British humanitarian agency.

“We need to monitor how the U.S. will pursue trade sanctions in the future,” she adds. “Will Thailand’s ministry of health be able to encourage generic drug production without being threatened?”

For both Cawthorn and Grady, such steps matter if the essential message stemming from the WTO’s deal — an affirmation that health is a human right — is to be meaningful, particularly to the sick in developing nations.

“This was a major breakthrough, getting the WTO to back the idea that trade has to be subordinate to health,” affirms Grady.

It was a triumph of a principle, says Walden Bello, executive director of Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based independent research organisation. “This issue was a test if there was a higher law above the WTO, or if trade rules.”

The shift in trade rules is significant for future policy- making, he adds. “Now, developing countries have a major tool to use in a broad way in seeking remedies for current and future diseases.”

In clearing the way for generic drugs, the WTO has also conceded that the public campaigns launched by non-governmental organisations, humanitarian agencies and health rights activists have worked.

“The pharmaceutical industry was forced to sit up and take notice about their practice, of placing trade and profits over health,” says Oxfam’s Grady, whose organisation launched a global campaign in February to force drug giants to cut the cost of desperately needed medicines for HIV/AIDS patients.

In April, the pharmaceutical industry came under more pressure following a legal battle between drug companies and the South African government. It arose when South Africa decided to amend its law to permit easier access to generics for its HIV/AIDS patients.

And in July, the United Nations Development Programme also slammed the world’s pharmaceutical industry for denying the millions suffering from HIV/AIDS in the developing world access to generic anti-AIDS drugs.

In its “Human Development Report 2001,” this U.N. agency called on developing countries to strengthen their national laws to enable local production of the cheaper, life-saving anti-AIDS drugs.

What’s more, the report argued that while developing countries had been prevented from accessing generics due to the WTO’s patent rules, that was far from the case for developed countries. The countries which had benefited included the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain and Germany.

“The trade delegations at the WTO meeting have looked at the whole picture, the balance sheet, and recognised what was wrong,” says Grady.

The high profile given to this issue succeeded in changing the political climate, adds Oxfam’s Michael Bailey in a statement to the media from Doha. “We would have liked to see stronger wording, but the declaration does have a clear political statement that public health concerns must override commercial interests.”

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