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Africa: Key Actions on Treatment Access
AFRICA ACTION
Africa Policy E-Journal
February 10, 2003 (030210)
Africa: Key Actions on Treatment Access
(Reposted from sources cited below)
This posting contains an urgent sign-on letter and other current
information about affordable antiretroviral treatment to save the
lives of people living with AIDS. Both the South African and U.S.
governments have now, after much resistance, recognized the need
for such treatment. But there is still an enormous gap between that
verbal recognition and saving lives now.
On February 14, in South Africa, the Treatment Action Campaign
(TAC) and numerous allied organizations are holding a march
coinciding with the opening of parliament to demand government
action. They are asking for organizational endorsements. Africa
Action has endorsed the letter below. We urge other organizations
to read the letter and the cover note from Artists from a New South
Africa, and send in your own organizational endorsement.
One of the earliest responses, also included below, is an open
letter to President Thabo Mbeki from the Kebbi Alliance of Positive
People in Kebbi, northern Nigeria.
In the international trade arena, rich countries led by the United
States are still trying to restrict the rights of countries to
import generic medicines. While President Bush acknowledged the
need for affordable generic medicines in his State of the Union
message, his "emergency plan" would not actually provide any drugs
until 2004 at the earliest. Meanwhile, multilateral negotiations
on this issue are stalled. The U.S. is intransigent, while other
rich countries are seeking compromise language that would also
backtrack on the "Doha declaration" of 2001 giving primacy to
health over patents. Press reports say that pharmaceutical
companies forced U.S. trade negotiators to take an even harder line
than that recommended by the U.S. trade representative himself (see
New York Times, Feb. 8, 2003).
This week, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is continuing to
discuss this issue in Geneva. On Saturday, Feb. 8, in a protest
endorsed by Africa Action, local members of the Student Global AIDS
Campaign in Washington staged a "die-in" at the offices of the
United States Trade Representative in protest against the U.S.
position, continuing with a march to the offices of the
pharmaceutical companies' trade association. Also on Saturday,
Medecins sans Frontieres issued an open letter to the WTO warning
that proposed "compromise" language could seriously undermine
previous agreements on the right to health. Brief excerpts from
this letter are also included below; the full letter is available
on http://www.accessmed-msf.org
+++++++++++++++++end summary/introduction+++++++++++++++++++++++
URGENT ACTION - PLEASE READ AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
Please send organizational endorsements by February 12, 2003, to:
ansadeborah@aol.com
For more information:
Deborah Baron, Program Coordinator Artists for a New South Africa
2999 Overland Avenue Suite 102 Los Angeles, CA 90064
(310) 204-1748/tel; (310) 204-4277; http://www.ansafrica.org
Dear Friends,
We are writing to ask your organization to sign a letter and take
action in support of a major South African mobilization effort to
help save the lives of millions of South African people living with
HIV/AIDS. Please forward this request for endorsements and action
to any organizations you know that might be interested in
participating.
On February 14, South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is
organizing a "Stand Up For Our Lives" march in Cape Town. South
African AIDS activists are calling on their government to sign and
implement a comprehensive prevention, care, and treatment plan, the
outline of which has already been negotiated between the government
and labor, business, religious, activist and NGO organizations.
They've requested support from international allies, and have asked
that actions be undertaken in a firm but friendly manner.
Please read the following letter and send authorization to list
your organization no later than February 12, 2003, to:
ansadeborah@aol.com. The names of the people to whom letters will
be sent, and their contact information, are listed below, after the
endorsement form. There is further background about TAC and this
action at the end of this email.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- Sign on to the organizational letter of support; see form below.
- Send your own letter to South African officials and consulates.
- If you are close to Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, or New
York City, try to meet with consulate or embassy officials. 4)
Write letters to the editors of local and major newspapers.
Go to http://www.healthgap.org for:
+ updates on solidarity vigils in the U.S. and how to organize your
own vigil
+ information on where to send letters and requests for meetings
with consulate officials in the US.
+ sample letters to the editors + sample short letters to
consulates
+ template of press release for vigils and consulate meetings
+ letter seeking international solidarity from TAC
Be sure to notify TAC of the actions you are taking and send them
copies of letters and press releases to: info@tac.org.za. And keep
up with TAC's campaign at: http://www.tac.org.za.
Please stand with TAC and all South African people living with or
affected by HIV/AIDS.
In solidarity,
HealthGAP and Artists for a New South Africa
ORGANIZATIONAL SIGN ON LETTER
We, the undersigned organizations, are deeply concerned about South
Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis.
South Africa has been a source of hope to the world, as your nation
triumphed over apartheid, established a new democracy, adopted the
world's most inclusive Bill of Rights and underwent a
precedent-setting process of truth and reconciliation. As the
country at the very epicenter of the global AIDS pandemic, with the
largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS and one of the
fastest growing infection rates, it is essential that South Africa
again demonstrate bold and decisive leadership. We implore the
South African government to act now by introducing a treatment plan
that aims to save the lives of South African people already
infected with HIV.
We join the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the Congress of South
African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Medical
Association (SAMA), and numerous other South African organizations,
in calling on the South African government to implement a national
HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment plan.
We endorse TAC's "Stand Up For Our Lives" march in Cape Town on
February 14, 2003, which will coincide with the opening of
Parliament by President Thabo Mbeki. We stand in solidarity with
the thousands of people who will march for their right to
healthcare and treatment. We ask the South African government to
turn this march into a celebration of life by announcing a National
HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment Plan that includes a clear
commitment to providing anti-retroviral therapy as a fundamental
part of care and treatment for all South Africans living with
HIV/AIDS who need it.
We recognize the challenges inherent in such an effort. We urge
South Africa to exercise every available policy tool to ensure
affordable and sustainable supplies of generic anti-retroviral
medicines, including issuing compulsory licenses on patented AIDS
drugs and beginning local production of anti-retrovirals. As
Americans, we will continue to demand that our own government stops
reneging on the commitment it made to the World Trade Organization
(WTO) in November, 2001 when it, along with all the other WTO
Member States, adopted the WTO Ministerial Declaration on the
Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS) and Public Health. We will also continue to demand that the
United States contribute its fair share of the funds needed to
combat the global AIDS pandemic effectively.
We welcome President Bush's pledge for increased unilateral funding
for international HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and will work
to make sure that these promises are kept, that bilateral programs
coordinate with recipient prevention, care, and treatment plans,
and that the bulk of the money be channeled through the Global Fund
to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This will help ensure that
unfair conditions are not placed on developing countries and that
bureaucracy, duplication, and delays are minimized.
Finally, we would like to respectfully inform you that if the
government fails to sign and implement a National HIV/AIDS
Prevention and Treatment Plan by the end of February 2003, we will
fully support TAC and their allies in their decision to pursue a
national campaign of non-violent civil disobedience. Using civil
disobedience to call for access to medicines should be unnecessary
and is avoidable. The world is waiting for South Africa's
leadership in confronting this epidemic and implementing a program
to deliver care, support, and medicines to those most in need. We
believe that unity amongst activists, trade unions, business, and
government is possible. We again urge the South African government
to act now.
Sincerely,
YES, ADD OUR ORGANIZATION TO THE SIGN-ON LETTER ABOVE.
FOR LISTING PURPOSES:
Organization Name:
City where organization is headquartered:
State where organization is headquartered:
REQUIRED INFORMATION:
Name of person authorizing listing:
Title / Affiliation with endorsing org:
OPTIONAL INFORMATION:
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
WHO LETTERS WILL BE SENT TO:
If you or your organization would like to write your own letter in
support of TAC, please write to your local consulate as well as to
the following people before February 14, 2003:
The Honorable JG Zuma Deputy President: Via Fax:
011-27-12-323-3114 E-mail: Deputypresident@po.gov.za
The Honorable Dr NC Dlamini-Zuma Minister of Foreign Affairs: Via
Fax: 011-27-12-351-0253 E-mail: media@foreign.gov.za
Ms Lakela Kaunda Chief Director: Communication and Spokesperson
Via E-mail: lakela@po.gov.za
Deputy Chief of Mission Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo South African
Embassy Via Fax: 202-265-1607
Consul General Thami Ngwevela South African Consulate General -
New York Via Fax: 212-213-0102
Consul General Glaudine Mtshali South African Consulate General -
Los Angeles Via Fax: 323-651-5969
Consul General Pat Sonjani South African Consulate General -
Chicago Via Fax: 312-939-2588
Please CC a copy of any letters you send to TAC via E-mail at:
info@tac.org.za
BACKGROUND
TAC and their allies are mounting this march in a firm but friendly
spirit. For more than four years TAC has appealed to government,
negotiated, marched, held interfaith services, supported the
government in court against drug companies and even litigated
against it to ensure a national mother-to-child HIV prevention
program. Last year, they agreed with South Africa's Deputy
President to hold off on their planned civil disobedience campaign
until the end of February, 2003. TAC is hoping the government will
act now and enable this march to become a celebration. However
given the urgency of the AIDS crisis, if the government doesn't act
by then, TAC will begin a non-violent civil disobedience campaign.
TAC is joined in this march by numerous South African groups
including Access, AIDS Consortium, AIDS Law Project, Archbishop of
Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church in Southern
Africa, ATTN SA, CARE, Children's Rights Centre, Combined AIDS
Ministry, COSATU, Durban Lesbian and Gay Community Centre, FAWU,
FEDUSA, Habonim, HOPSERSA, Jubilee 2000, Kagiso Anglican YCW,
Positive Muslims, Positive Wits - HIV/AIDS Campaign, RAPCAN, SA
Academy of Family Practice, SACTWU, South African Medical
Association, SAMWU, SOHACA, Southern African Catholic Bishops
Conference AIDS Office, The Caring Network, The Southern African
HIV Clinicians Society, Themba HIV/AIDS Project, Triangle Project,
WC-NACOSA, Western Cape Council of Churches, Wits HIV/AIDS
Education and Support Project, Wits Perinatal HIV Research Unit,
Women on Farms Project and many others. They are marching to
support their sisters, brothers, children, parents, families,
colleagues and communities.
Open Letter posted in Nigeria-AIDS eForum
http://www.nigeria-aids.org/eforum.cfm
The Nigeria-AIDS eForum is a project of Journalists Against AIDS
(JAAIDS) Nigeria.
For further information, visit our website:
http://www.nigeria-aids.org
Dear President Mbeki,
It saddens our heart that you have still not decided to let your
people live. We who write this letter love you so much and you are
a hero to us.
We are a small group of People Living With AIDS who would all have
died a long time ago but our President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
gave us anti-retrovirals and we are all living our normal lives.
The medicines do a great wonder in the fight against AIDS. Like
our friend Mr. Nasko; he was carried on a stretcher into the
doctors office and given these medicines; yesterday he took the
stairs two at a time and came to visit us. He had returned to his
job as small time trader. So also Mr. Ambursa, he was taken for
dead and wheeled into the doctors office, just six months after,
he too is back at his job.
The medicines are so easy to take and have no side effects that
have made any of us uncomfortable whatsoever.
About two hundred of us here in this poor, illiterate North of
Nigeria are taking these medicines very easily. Just three in the
morning and three in the evening. They are subsidized for us and we
all can afford the 10 dollars every month that we are required to
pay. Families have been re-united, even Lami and Rueben have got
married. Lami wrote her will a few months before getting the
medicines.
You are a good man, President Mbeki, just save the lives of your
people and be the 'Best Man'
Our best regards.
Samaila Garba
Kebbi Alliance Of Positive People (KAPOP)
Birnin-Kebbi Kebbi State, Nigeria
Email: kapokeb@inet-global.com
Open Letter to the Members of the WTO from Medecins Sans Frontieres
Paris, 8 February 2003
For more information contact:
Ellen 't Hoen: + 33 6 22375871
Christopher Garrison: + 44 7720470622
Rachel M. Cohen +1-212-655-3762
E-mail: rachel.cohen@newyork.msf.org
http://www.accessmed-msf.org/
Dear Sir, Madam,
On Monday the Chair of the TRIPS Council is expected to propose to
the WTO General Council to adopt the "Motta December 16 text" and
to make the following statement:
"Before proposing the adoption of the text of 16 December
2002, I would like to put on record a number of understandings
which have emerged from the discussions leading up to the
formulation of this text.
The first is that all delegations have reconfirmed their
commitment to the provisions of the Doha Declaration on the
TRIPS Agreement and Public Health and to the need to respect
fully its provisions.
Secondly, delegations have made it clear that they see the
system that we are establishing under paragraph 6 of that
Declaration as being essentially designed to address national
emergencies or other circumstances of extreme urgency.
Third, delegations have recognized the need to avoid
undermining the importance of intellectual property protection
for the development of new medicines and have also reaffirmed
that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent
Members from taking measures to protect public health.
Having put on record these understandings, I would propose the
adoption of the draft decision contained in ..."
We urgently call upon the WTO Members to reject this statement for
the following reasons:
1. Paragraph 6 was never meant to only address national emergencies
or other circumstances of extreme urgency, whether "essentially" or
otherwise. The objective of paragraph 6 was to ensure that
countries without production capacity could make effective use of
compulsory licensing which is a key TRIPS safeguard. Anyone who
claims otherwise is re-writing the history of the Doha
negotiations. ...
2. The adoption of this text would mean that countries without the
possibility to produce medicines are at a major disadvantage over
countries that do have the capacity. ...
The Doha declaration confirms the right of countries to issue
compulsory licenses in paragraph 5 (b): Each Member has the right
to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the
grounds upon which such licences are granted. ..
The proposed Chairman's statement would entrench a system with
"Second class" Members whose possibilities to exercise their rights
under the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha declaration will be limited
compared to countries that have the capacity to produce. It needs
no mention that it will be the people in the most disadvantaged
countries who will suffer disproportionably from this. ,,,
In effect these two different classes of Members will be
constituted as follows:
First class Members with manufacturing capacity will be able to use
compulsory licensing to address whichever public health problems
they have identified.
Second class Members without manufacturing capacity will be able to
use compulsory licensing to address public health problems only in
case of a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme
urgency. In theory, they can issue a compulsory licence to address
any public health problem; in practice they can only get supplies
of the medicines they need under a compulsory licence in an
emergency situation. ...
In conclusion an agreement to this text would be a disastrous final
chapter in the 2 year old history of the Doha declaration on TRIPS
and Public Health.
If Members agree to this text it will no longer be possible to
maintain that the TRIPS "Agreement can and should be interpreted
and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO Members' right to
protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to
medicines for all." This was the main objective and achievement of
the Doha process which the Chair's statement will undo.
We therefore propose that the Members of the WTO take into
consideration the following alternative wording for the Chair's
statement:
Delegations have made it clear that they see the system that is
being established under this proposed solution as being designed to
promote access to effective treatments to address public health
problems afflicting countries with insufficient or no manufacturing
capacities in the pharmaceutical sector as called for in paragraph
6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRlPS Agreement and Public Health.
Regardless of any accompanying statement, Chairman Motta's 16th
December text is a compromise that is far from ideal because it
fails the test of being simple, workable and economically viable.
It falls far short of what the World Health Organization's proposal
of 17 September 2002 could have delivered or still could deliver.
We maintain our position that it is not too late to reject the
proposals and explore alternative ways to achieve what the Doha
declaration set out to do: access to medicines for all.
Sincerely Yours,
Ellen 't Hoen
MSF Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Date distributed (ymd): 030210
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +health+ +economy/development+
The Africa Action E-Journal is a free information service
provided by Africa Action, including both original
commentary and reposted documents. Africa Action provides this
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of
human rights.
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