Getting HIV and AIDS medicines to the people who need them
HIV/AIDS confront the legislator with serious challenges. There are no easy solutions. A large gathering of parliamentarians from around the world assembled in Manila on the eve of World AIDS Day to look at how parliaments can help each other to tackle them.
One of these challenges is the question of how medicines for HIV/AIDS can be made available to the people who need them. The price of antiretrovirals, for example, is currently far beyond the reach of most HIV-positive people in low-and middleincome countries. The cost of the drugs is largely determined by the patent regime and laws on intellectual property rights. These in turn are administered multilaterally under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement).
Embedded within the intricacies of the TRIPS Agreement are a handful of provisions, or "flexibilities" as they are termed in WTO jargon, which can be exploited to strengthen the position of governments negotiating the procurement of medicines for their populations. One of the points emphatically made by the parliamentariansin Manila was that far greater use could be made of these flexibilities than is currently the case, and parliaments should be instrumental in making that happen by incorporating them into domestic law.
The least developed countries, for example, are fully exempted from having to grant pharmaceutical patents up to 2016. Another flexibility authorizes governments to import generic essential medicines produced under compulsory license. But as the parliamentarians heard, rather than using these rights, some countries are actually legislating more stringent patent protection than the TRIPS Agreement requires. One such example is India. India's dynamic generic manufacturing industry earned it the title of "the pharmacy of the developing world", but the laws that made that possible are now being amended in favour of tighter patent protection.
The parliamentarians - all experts from the respective health committees - agreed that they should be much more vigilant in legislating to avail their governments of the rights they enjoy under the TRIPS Agreement. The Manila event, which brought together over two hundred delegates from all regions of the world, was the first global parliamentary meeting on HIV/AIDS. Others will follow.
Taking action against HIV
The IPU, together with UNAIDS and UNDP, has issued a Handbook for Parliamentarians entitled Taking action against HIV. The Handbook was launched at the First Global Parliamentary Meeting on HIV/AIDS, jointly organized by the IPU, UNAIDS and UNDP, in cooperation with the Senate of the Philippines, in November in Manila. It is the first time that parliamentarians the world over have been convened to jointly discuss the part they have to play in responding to the AIDS epidemic. This publication will serve as both a call to action for parliamentary leadership and a reference that legislators and their staff may consult for information and guidance on specific issues in relation to the AIDS response.