[Ip-health] IP-Watch: IP Rises At Assembly As Brazil Proposes Greater WHO Role In Trade 
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17 May 2007
IP Rises At Assembly As Brazil Proposes Greater WHO Role In Trade


By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen

Intellectual property has become a major issue at this yearâs World
Health Assembly, with Brazil introducing a new draft resolution on
public health, innovation and intellectual property, adding to various
draft resolutions involving IP already under discussion. Meanwhile, a
question was raised this week about WHO leadership on these issues.

On 16 May, Brazil submitted a draft resolution to the WHO secretariat
that would strengthen support for the use of flexibilities in trade
rules for countriesâ public health needs. The proposal was made
available as a formal document (A60/B/Conf.Paper No.3) in all
translations on 17 May, sources said.

Highlighting flexibilities and requesting that WHO get more involved in
the area of trade, the draft resolution may bring countriesâ real-life
recent moves in this area into the policy discussions, sources said.

The draft resolution refers to resolution WHA59.24 from last yearâs
assembly, which set up the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public
Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IPW, Public Health, 27
May 2006).

The mandate of the group (âIGWGâ) is to come up with a draft global
strategy and plan of action to provide a medium-term framework to
secure enhanced and sustainable research and development of treatments
for neglected diseases by May 2008.

The IGWG progress report to this assembly is scheduled for next week
but may happen sooner, sources said.

Brazil requests the WHO director general to be proactive and provide
technical and policy support to countries that intend to use the World
Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) flexibilities to increase access
to existing medicines. WHO also should help countries implement the
Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health from 2001, which affirms
that âthe TRIPS agreement does not and should not prevent members from
taking measures to protect public health,â the proposal said.

In the draft resolution, Brazil also requests the director general to
âexpress support for countries that make use of the flexibilities
contained in TRIPS in order to increase access to medicines.â Brazil,
Italy and Thailand are among the most recent countries that have used
one of these TRIPS flexibilities, compulsory licensing, which allows a
government or third party to use a patented subject matter without the
authorisation of the patent holder, who is then compensated. A Thai
source said in a 15 May meeting that Thailand has come under âhuge
pressureâ for doing so.

The Brazil resolution refers to the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals, and says that âsources of generic versions of new
medicines are being limited as pharmaceutical product patents are
adopted by almost all members of WTO.â

But not all countries agree that WHO should be actively involved in
trade. The United States said during a committee meeting on 16 May on
the WHO medium-term strategic plan (2008-2013) and proposed programme
budget (2008-2009) that all information WHO is providing on trade
should be cleared with the WTO and the World Intellectual Property
Organization, and should be âunbiasedâ and âevidence-based.â

WHO Director General Margaret Chan did not highlight IP in her opening
speech, but referred to striking the right balance between immediate
access and stimulating innovation, mentioning the IGWG.

A source said that the 11 countries of the South East Asia region of
WHO have said they would support the Brazilian draft resolution.

Concern About WHO Leadership

Brazil also requests member states to fully and actively support the
IGWG and âprovide adequate resources to WHO for this purpose.â Some
countries have shown dissatisfaction with the process so far.

On 16 May, a Thai official also called for more support of the IGWG and
said he had ânever seen any leadership that is so weakâ on any subject.

He also accused the WHO secretariat of being biased, referring to
evidence he said was discovered by one member state that one of the WHO
collaborating centres on influenza had disrespected the terms and
shared the virus outside the system and some IP rights had been
obtained (IPW, Public Health, 16 May 2007).

The official said that instead of investigating, WHO had âwiped out the
terms of the guidelines,â which are no longer on the website. He said
this was a âbiased and non-transparent action by the secretariat.â

A WHO official confirmed on 15 May that the guidelines were removed,
but referred to new best practices that are being developed. WHO was
unavailable for further comment.

Chan replied to the Thai official that the collaborating centres
constitute a âmajor contributionâ to WHO, but that âsome behaviour of
certain centresâ has not been in accordance with the guidelines and WHO
takes full responsibility for not having monitored them. She said it
was her personal commitment to protect the credibility of WHO, and
referred to the development of new terms of reference and good
practices for the centres. She said WHO may need to consider sanctions
against centres that do not comply in the future.

In the same session, Switzerland said it could not find anything in the
medium-term plan on how the IGWG will be financed. Germany on behalf of
the European Union said that in the plan, âthe ongoing work of the
[IGWG] as well as the mandate of WHO to assist countries in using TRIPS
flexibilities when necessary are not reflected in any of the expected
results.â Norway echoed this.

Avian Flu

Separately, a drafting group on avian flu continued its work but no
specific result was reported. One participant said the main issues in
three resolutions being considered had been presented and clusters of
concerns discussed. The issue being addressed is the sharing of avian
flu virus strains and whether a requirement for prior informed consent
before using the strains would be realistic, a developed country source
said.

Tove Gerhardsen may be reached at tgerhardsen@ip-watch.ch.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All of the news
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