Thailand has recently appointed a new Minister of Public Health, Chaiya Sasomsup who has said he might review the previous government’s decision to issue Compulsory Licences.

Compulsory Licensing is an important and effective legislative measure which helps improve access to treatment by allowing the production or importation of affordable generic versions of key medicines. The measure was used by the Thai government in 2007 on a number of drugs including heat-stable Kaletra a life-saving anti-retroviral drug that would otherwise have remained out of the reach of people living with HIV and AIDS in Thailand. Using this measure to access affordable medicines creates a balance by limiting exclusive patent rights and upholding the government’s constitutional responsibility to promote equality and protect public health.

The recent announcement by the new Minister of Public Health has led to fear among patients and activists “We are worried,” said Nimit Tienudom, director of AIDS ACCESS Thailand, a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) working to help patients living with HIV/AIDS, in an interview with Intellectual Property Watch. “It sounds like he might want to negotiate with the drug companies again.”

Please help convince the new government to stand firm to its predecessor’s decision to increase greater access to medicines. The following petition calls for “clarification of the present
government’s stance on Compulsory Licensing, which was used legally by the previous government to significantly increase access to anti-retroviral treatment for people living with HIV.”

For more background information see:
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=914
http://www.essentialaction.org/access/index.php?/archives/73-Access-to-Medicines-in-Thailand-Interference-by-the-United-States.html

Or email: kakablue@yahoo.com
with your name and name of organisation if you belong to one to sign the letter written by MSF and copied below.

Thanks - see you on the training weekend maybe?
Harry

Your Excellency,

On behalf of civil society movements and NGOs working
on health and human rights, we would like to extend
our sincere congratulations to you on your appointment
as Minister of Public Health of Thailand.

Your Excellency, as you may realize, the fact that
many Thai people still do not have access to a number
of life saving essential medicines is one of our major
concerns. Indeed, the right to the highest attainable
standard of health is enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the current
Constitution of Thailand, and access to essential
medicines plays a critical role in fulfilling this
right. However, the privatization of medicine in the
form of patent protection is a major obstacle that
currently blocks the path to putting in place a plan
that can rapidly expand access to life saving
treatments. While patents reward years of research and
development, they can at the same time increase the
public burden by maintaining unacceptably high prices
for some essential medicines.

May we take this opportunity to ask Your Excellency
for the position of the Ministry of Public Health and
the new government on the policies to be implemented
to ensure an equitable increase in access to essential
medicines for the people of Thailand. In particular
we would appreciate clarification of the present
government’s stance on Compulsory Licensing, which was
used legally by the previous government to
significantly increase access to anti-retroviral
treatment for people living with HIV.

We consider Compulsory Licensing as an important and
effective legislative measure to ensure improve access
to treatment for a number of chronic and life
threatening diseases. It has been proven that the use
of Compulsory Licensing helps to create a balance by
limiting exclusive patent rights and upholding the
government’s constitutional responsibility to promote
equality and protect public health.

It is also important to note that the National Health
Security Office’s use of low cost generic
antiretroviral medicines imported under Compulsory
License has lead to significant budgetary savings.
These savings have allowed the National Health
Security Office to provide antiretroviral medicines
with fewer side effects and an improved monitoring
system to large numbers of HIV/AIDS patients. Moreover
these savings have also allow the National Health
Security Office to extend its benefit packages to
those with other chronic disease such as renal
failure.

Your Excellency, to address the challenge of improving
access to essential medicines we first need
‘commitment’ from the government. We are certainly
counting on this government to build this commitment
as well as to develop new strategies. While realizing
and understanding that we need to think of other
systematic approaches as part of a long term strategy
to increase equitability of access to medicines,
compulsory licensing should remain as part of this
strategy.

At this moment many patients with cancer are awaiting
the importation of affordable generic versions of the
three expensive patented anticancer medicines for
which the previous government recently issued
compulsory licenses. We would like to call on Your
Excellency to ensure these people and other like them
no longer suffer the catastrophic consequences of the
excessively high price of some life saving patent
protected medicines.

Your Excellency, we are a cooperative network with
sincere attitudes, and are willing to share any
knowledge and experience with the Ministry of Public
Health in order to reach our ultimate goal of an
increased and equitable access to medicines.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of our
highest consideration.

Kannikar KIJTIWATCHAKUL (Kar)
Access to Essential Medicine Campaigner
MSF Belgium - Thailand Mission,

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under Campaign News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.