Patent laws depriving South Africans of cheaper medicine

African News Agency (ANA)

Patent laws depriving South Africans of cheaper medicine
Activists march to the DTI offices in Pretoria to hand over a submission calling on government to deal with outdated patent laws which they said are depriving many South Africans of cheaper generic medicine.

Hundreds of activists marched to the department of trade and industry (DTI) in Pretoria on Tuesday, as part of the Fix the Patent Laws Campaign, calling on government to deal with outdated patent laws and improve accessibility of medicines to millions of South Africans.

“We’re demanding access to affordable medicines through IP [intellectual property] reform in this country. We’re asking the DTI to take advantage of the flexibilities that it is allowed to do, to prioritise people’s lives over profits, to priorities public health over patents,” said Claire Waterhouse, Southern Africa advocacy coordinator for international humanitarian-aid non-governmental organisation Médicines Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

“We’re as the Fix the Patent Laws coalition which is a coalition of 31 different patient groups ranging from all the disease spectrums which includes from cancer, HIV and mental health. We do think that it’s time all South Africans have access to affordable medicines.”

Lotti Rutter, spokesperson of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said the current laws in South Africa permit international pharmaceutical companies to maintain their stronghold on the critical sector and block cheaper generic medicines from being imported into the country — due to the long-term patent rights they got from government.

“Most the companies are international players. In 2007, South Africa issued 2,442 patents to on pharmaceuticals. Only 16 of those were to South African companies. The rest went to international companies. So it’s benefiting the international pharmaceutical industry,” said Rutter.

“It is hurting the health of people in this country. It’s hurting innovation into new medicines. People only innovate in areas where they do make a lot of money in. It’s also hurting the economy because we are paying all this money for medicines when we don’t need to be paying that much money.”

Nkhensani Mavasa, national chairperson of the TAC said currently thousands of South Africans were suffering and dying because medicines for cancer, hepatitis, tuberculosis, mental health and many other diseases are too expensive.

“While we won the fight for first line HIV medicines, we lost the battle for almost all other medicines,” said Mavasa.

The coalition on Tuesday handed its submission to the DTI’s acting chief director of international trade division Niki Kruger, adding their voice to the intellectual property consultative framework which was released for comment in July.

“If the minister [Rob Davies] was here in Pretoria, he would definitely have been here to receive this memorandum. I want to assure you that access to medicine is a key priority for this department of trade and industry. It is also a key priority in the development of our IP Policy,” said Kruger.

“The minister has previously said in Parliament, the first part of the IP Policy that will deal with access to medicine will be finalised by the end of this financial year. We will take into account all of the submissions that we have received. Everything you are saying, we will give consideration. We need a policy which really addresses the challenges.”

South Africa Today – South Africa News

SOURCEAfrican News Agency (ANA)