The US is yet again playing spoilsport by attempting to water down negotiations that enable access to affordable medicines for countries across the world.

Earlier, the US opposition to passage of promotion of breastfeeding resolution in World Health Assembly in Geneva, had left a sour taste in the mouth.

Now, it is exerting extreme pressure on countries negotiating the final declaration text for the first-ever UN High-level Meeting (UNHLM) on Tuberculosis (TB), in September, to drop references to protecting countries’ rights to take fully-legal actions to access affordable medicines for their people.

Talks on the TB declaration were supposed to have been wrapped up but they continued on Friday without resolution. The US is exerting extreme pressure on other negotiators by refusing to sign the declaration at the UN General Assembly in September if language such as paragraph (PP19) that “recognizes the importance of affordable medicines” and “urges countries to enforce intellectual property rules in ways that promote access" is included, participants that are a party to the negotiations in New York told Businessline.

As the nearly two-month negotiations wind up in New York, one of the final sticking points remains language on public health safeguards enshrined in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This allows governments, among other things, to issue ‘compulsory licenses’ to override patents in the interest of public health, so that they can allow generic versions to be produced or imported and more people can receive needed treatment.

Businessline has viewed and compared the July 10 draft and the subsequent July 20 draft of the negotiation document. In the previous document, the Operational Guideline number 14 states, “the use to the full, of existing flexibilities under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) specifically geared to promoting access to and trade in medicines; and ensure that intellectual property rights provision in trade agreements do not undermine existing flexibilities, as confirmed in the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health.”

Surprisingly, in the July 20 draft absolutely no mention of using TRIPS flexibilities and the Doha Declaration is found in the operational guidelines. The clause has been dropped.

Similarly, the July 10 draft shows that US is opposed to the language in Preambular Paragraph 19 (PP19) of TRIPS flexibilities and an alternate PP19 is proposed with an addition of the clause, “that intellectual property rights are an important incentive in the development of new health products.” The alternate PP19 has been retained in the latest July 20 draft.

Medicines affordability and use of TRIPS flexibilities has been agreed upon in multiple international fora, including the UN High-level Declaration on anti-microbial resistance (AMR), so dropping it from the operational guidelines at this crucial juncture will be a setback to how the course further is charted by developing countries as they tackle the TB scourge, believe experts. Leena Menghaney, South Asia Head for Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) Access Campaign said, “We are appealing to all countries, including those in the Group of 77, and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, that have a high burden of TB, to urgently stand up right now against bullying that aims to keep medicines out of the hands of your people who need treatment.”

The United Nations is going to hold a High Level Meeting on TB in New York in September. The member countries of UN will sign on a declaration will set the direction in which work on TB, globally, will move. The declaration will be like an international framework for TB research funding, development of new medicines, pricing and access of these medicines and new technologies. It is the first time that TB is being discussed at this fora. The negotiators expected to be finished with the text by Monday, after which the declaration text will not be re-opened, according to plans.

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