Dear all
I wish to bring your attention to two articles that summarize the impact of Civil Society on improving access to medicines, and really bringing this issue to the forefront of global debate. These articles present the manner in which the Treatment Action Campaign mobilized the population and global activists to call for equitable access to care (an issue that is relevant today in terms of COVID-19 therapeutics).
(1) Mark Heywood, South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign: Combining Law and Social Mobilization to Realize the Right to Health, Journal of Human Rights Practice, Volume 1, Issue 1, March 2009, Pages 14–36, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/hun006
ABSTRACT
This article summarizes the experience and results of a campaign for access to medicines for HIV in South Africa, led by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) between 1998 and 2008. It illustrates how the TAC mobilized people to campaign for the right to health using a combination of human rights education, HIV treatment literacy, demonstration, and litigation. As a result of these campaigns, the TAC was able to reduce the price of medicines, prevent hundreds of thousands of HIV-related deaths, but also to force significant additional resources into the health system and towards the poor. The article asks whether the method of the TAC has a wider application for human rights campaigns and, particularly, whether the protection of the right to health in law, and the obligation that it be progressively realized by the State, provides an opportunity to advance human rights practice.
(2) Hoen E', Berger J, Calmy A, Moon S. Driving a decade of change: HIV/AIDS, patents and access to medicines for all. J Int AIDS Soc. 2011;14:15. Published 2011 Mar 27. doi:10.1186/1758-2652-14-15 [Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078828/ ]
ABSTRACT
Since 2000, access to antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV infection has dramatically increased to reach more than five million people in developing countries. Essential to this achievement was the dramatic reduction in antiretroviral prices, a result of global political mobilization that cleared the way for competitive production of generic versions of widely patented medicines.
Global trade rules agreed upon in 1994 required many developing countries to begin offering patents on medicines for the first time. Government and civil society reaction to expected increases in drug prices precipitated a series of events challenging these rules, culminating in the 2001 World Trade Organization's Doha Declaration on the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Public Health. The Declaration affirmed that patent rules should be interpreted and implemented to protect public health and to promote access to medicines for all. Since Doha, more than 60 low- and middle-income countries have procured generic versions of patented medicines on a large scale.
Despite these changes, however, a "treatment timebomb" awaits. First, increasing numbers of people need access to newer antiretrovirals, but treatment costs are rising since new ARVs are likely to be more widely patented in developing countries. Second, policy space to produce or import generic versions of patented medicines is shrinking in some developing countries. Third, funding for medicines is falling far short of needs. Expanded use of the existing flexibilities in patent law and new models to address the second wave of the access to medicines crisis are required.
One promising new mechanism is the UNITAID-supported Medicines Patent Pool, which seeks to facilitate access to patents to enable competitive generic medicines production and the development of improved products. Such innovative approaches are possible today due to the previous decade of AIDS activism. However, the Pool is just one of a broad set of policies needed to ensure access to medicines for all; other key measures include sufficient and reliable financing, research and development of new products targeted for use in resource-poor settings, and use of patent law flexibilities. Governments must live up to their obligations to protect access to medicines as a fundamental component of the human right to health.
The case of improving access to ARVs for South Africans really points to the importance of civil society engagement in health policy development and implementation, and their role in holding governments accountable.
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Regards, Fatima
Professor: Discipline of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Director: World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Evidenced Based Practice
School of Health Sciences
College of Health Sciences
Westville Campus
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X54001
Durban
4000
South Africa
(tel) +27 31 2607358 (sec)/+27 31 260 7941 (direct)
(fax) +27 31 260 7906/7792
(email) sulemanf@ukzn.ac.za
HIFA profile: Fatima Suleman is Professor: Discipline of Pharmaceutical Sciences/Director: World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Evidenced Based Practice, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She is a member of the HIFA working group on SUPPORT-SYSTEMS: How can decision-making processes for health systems strengthening and universal health coverage be made more inclusive, responsive and accountable?
https://www.hifa.org/support/members/fatima
https://www.hifa.org/projects/new-support-systems-how-can-decision-makin...
Email: sulemanf AT ukzn.ac.za
