Make access to Covid-19 vaccines possible
What you need to know:
The greatest challenge was the fact that these pharmaceutical companies had patents for their products and, therefore, enjoyed intellectual property rights in respect to the HIV/Aids treatment
In the 1990s when HIV/Aids was claiming many lives in Africa, especially in South Africa, American pharmaceutical companies had produced essential drugs that could save the situation.
However, these drugs were very expensive and could not, by any standards, be afforded by government in Africa.
The greatest challenge was the fact that these pharmaceutical companies had patents for their products and, therefore, enjoyed intellectual property rights in respect to the HIV/Aids treatment.
This meant that production and distribution was only limited to pharmaceutical companies in the West, which only cared about profiteering. Death was the only remedy for the Aids patients.
The South African government, specifically the then Minister of Health Nkosozana Dramini Zuma, drafted a legislative proposal that contained the explicit authorisation of parallel import of patented pharmaceuticals. They also sought to amend the South African Medicines and Related Substances Control Act by inserting a new Section 15C, which would enable South Africa to benefit from lower prices abroad for the same drugs.
Fearing a domino effect in the developing world, the US pharmaceutical industry, backed by the US government, opposed the enactment of Section 15C, arguing that it was tantamount to a complete abrogation of patent rights and that it violated the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
Nevertheless, these were signed into law by then president Nelson Mandela on December 12, 1997. At least 39 drug companies went to court to challenge the law which would allow South Africa to buy cheap generic substitutes for patented Aids drugs.
The Indian drug manufacturer of generic drugs, CIPLA, had said it could offer inexpensive knockoff versions of eight out of the 15 anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) that could help save many from eminent death. The firms managed to get court to put a halt to the enforcement of the laws, even when people continued to die at an abnormal rate in South Africa.
But after concerted efforts and global campaigns led by WHO, UNAIDS and other players, the pharmaceutical companies accepted to waive their intellectual property rights. This development greatly fostered the containment of the HIV/Aids in developing countries.
Today, Covid-19 is claiming lives in even greater measure. Western pharmaceutical companies have engineered eight candidate vaccines against Covid-19.
The three leading candidate vaccines are the Moderna in the US, the Pfizer BioNTech and the Oxford astrazeneca.
Issues of equality in access to these vaccines have risen with fears that nine in 10 people in the 70 poorest countries, will not be vaccinated against Covid-19 in 2021, according to the UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima.
The rich countries are booking out nearly all Covid-19 doses, booking even five times more doses than all their people need.
Seith Kangume Barigye
