World

Mbeki Rejects AIDS Emergency

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 14, 2001 / 12:50 PM EST / CBS

President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday rejected mounting calls to invoke a state of emergency to enable the government to access cheap drugs to address South Africa's AIDS crisis.

Declaring a state of emergency would allow South Africa to produce generic, cheaper drugs without breaking World Trade Organization rules. Most of the 4.5 million South Africans who are estimated to be HIV-positive cannot afford the drugs that could prolong their lives.

But Mbeki said the Medicines Control Act, passed in 1997, was more effective than the provisions in the WTO-administered Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement, which enables patents to be bypassed in cases of emergency.

"Declaring a state of emergency, we believe, is not necessary," Mbeki told Parliament. "We see no reason why we should not rely on the more comprehensive legislation approved by this Parliament."

The World Trade Organization rules for emergencies allow for compulsory licenses to be issued, meaning countries using the provision can produce, but not import, generic drugs. Mbeki said no government had yet used the WTO provision.

The South African law permits both importation and production of generic drugs. It also allows parallel importing, meaning the government can buy the cheapest drugs available by circumventing drug distribution agreements.

The law, however, has been stalled by a lawsuit brought by the world's big drug companies. The firms say the law gives South Africa's health minister arbitrary and unfettered power to control the import and pricing structure of medicines, and argue it is unconstitutional.

The drug companies have moved to undercut the state's law by slashing the prices of their own drugs. The latest pharmaceutical to cut prices is Bristol-Myers Squibb, which on Wednesday joined Merck by announcing it would sell two drugs for a combined $1 a day.

Britain's GlaxoSmithKline -- the world's largest supplier of HIV/AIDS medicines -- pledged last month to widen its own access initiative by supplying drugs to a range of non-profit-making organizations at discounts in excess of 90 percent.

The real challenge for the drug companies comes from Indian manufacturers, which have offered to sell generic knock-offs of the patented cocktail of AIDS drugs for as little as $350 a year, or less than $1 a day.

The British charity Oxfam said the action by companies was undermined by their tough stance in defense of patents, which was preventing developing countries from securing the lowest-cost supply of medicines.

Mbeki said the government would have to await the court's decision. The case has been postponed to April 18, and no outcome is expected for at least several months.

Mbeki reasoned that because South Africans know how serious the AIDS crisis is, the government did not need to declare an emergency to underscore that point.

Mbeki said such declarations were regulate by the Constitution, and could only be enacted to restore peace and order when the life of the nation was threatened.

The Democratic Alliance, the country's largest opposition party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which represents about 1.8 million workers, had called on Mbeki to invoke the state of emergency.

"Last year an estimated 250,000 South Africans died of AIDS," Tony Leon, leader of the Democratic Alliance, said Wednesday. "It is estimated that more than 4 million South Africans are sick or dying of AIDS at the moment and if that isn't an emergency, it is difficult to know what is."