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Posted on Categories Featured 358 Comments on Why the anti-counterfeit bill could block access to reading materials

Why the anti-counterfeit bill could block access to reading materials

By Patricia Oyella

On the 14th of November, Uganda and the rest of the world marked DOHA declaration. The declarations adopted by the World Trade Organization requires that its member states have put in place domestic legislation that protect intellectual property rights among others . Uganda like other least developing countries have up to 2013.

However in this report by Patricia Oyella, experts on Intellectaul Property and Human Rights warn that Uganda has not taken advantage of flexibilities provided in the trips agreement which could impede access to education materials. They also warn that the Anti Counterfeit law bill as it is would also affect the right to education.

It is the norm at higher institutions of learning to have photocopying services to help students get access to reading materials. Photocopying costs range from extracts of books, pamphlets to whole books that could go for as high as 200,000 shillings but when photocopied go for a tidy fee of a maximum of 15,000 shillings. But all that could rapidly change if the Country’s Anti counterfeit bill meant to protect domestic manufacturers is made into law in its current state.

An expert on Intellectual Property Rights and Human Rights, Mulumba Moses with the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) says the law could stifle access to education materials. He instead pushes for a provision in the law that could instead of levying criminal sanctions could introduce a user fee that photocopiers could pay.

Yet the time is also ticking on the implementation of the Trips agreement signed ten years ago in 2001 in Doha. Domestically Uganda should implement its laws already passed like the Trade Act and the Copy Right Act after 2013 that protect intellectual property.

The Copyright act currently makes provisions for fair use where users can photocopy for personal use but not for profit. After 2013, government will increasingly come under pressure to crack its whip and education institutions that normally mass photocopy will pay the price. That impact could reduce if the country’s Copyright law were amended to incorporate flexibilities like parallel importation.

The Executive Director of the National Book Trust Uganda, Richard Batambuze knows too well the cost of not having a provision in the law that allows parallel importation.

Its currently estimated that 80% of books at the primary level and 60% at secondary level are produced by local authors…. That percentage dwindles heavily at higher institutions of learning.

Dr. Kakungulu Mayambala with the HumanRights and Peace Center Makerere University, however also argues that even with efforts to improve access to education, some people just abuse the process.

As DOHA agreement reaches its ten year mark, Uganda and other Least Developed Countries hope to push for an extension to allow them put in place legislation that take into account flexibilities in the agreement but with politics often taking the fore in national debates. Countries like Uganda will only move forward once that start looking at Intellectual property rights in terms of Human rights and how they affect the national development plan.

Source:http://www.wbs-tv.co.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1983:why-the-anti-counterfeit-bill-could-block-access-to-reading-materials&catid=1:current-affairs&Itemid=77

Posted on Categories News 563 Comments on Lives at risk as 90 per cent of Aids drugs in Uganda could be declared illegal

Lives at risk as 90 per cent of Aids drugs in Uganda could be declared illegal

By Henry Zakumumpa

Thousands of Ugandans enrolled on antiretroviral treatment in Uganda risk an Aids drugs shortage unless a grace period placed on the manufacture of generic Aids drugs imposed under TRIPS, an international trade law, is extended beyond July 2013. According to Denis Kibira of the Health Rights NGO, HEPS-Uganda, almost 90 per cent of Aids drugs available on the Ugandan market are generic drugs from India.

A generic drug is an identical copy of a brand name. Under World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s TRIPS agreement, to which Uganda is a signatory, poor countries were given a transitional period to consume generic Aids drugs based on original formulas developed by mainly Western pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Smith Kline Beecham, which invest heavily in developing new Aids drugs. For pharmaceutical products, this ban will take effect in 2016.

According to the WHO, ‘Developing countries are failing to make full use of flexibilities built into the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to overcome patent barriers and, in turn, allow them to acquire the medicines they need for high priority diseases, in particular, HIV/Aids.

According to Mr Kibira, almost all Aids drugs used in Uganda are manufactured in India and Uganda under an international intellectual property law that permits drug manufacturers in developing countries to manufacture pharmaceutical products that imitate those originally made by Western pharmaceutical companies on account of public health emergencies in poor countries.

For developing countries such as India, the ban on manufacture of generic Aids drugs came into force in 2005 under the TRIPS agreement of the WTO whereas a similar ban on poorer developing countries such as Uganda will take effect in 2016 unless Uganda passes a national law that allows for extension of this deadline.

Pharmaceutical products have a deadline of 2016. UNAIDS,UNDAP and WHO have urged all developing countries to enact TRIPS ‘flexibilities’ or provisions with the international trade law that allows poor countries to use patented medicines under a public health emergency provision.

“Unless the Ugandan Parliament revisits and passes the Industrial Properties Bill, the permission to manufacture cheap generic ARV drugs will cease in 2016 with thousands affected since Quality Chemicals manufactures generic Aids drug,’’ said Moses Mulumba,Executive Director of CEHURD, a healthcare access rights NGO advocacy group.

With the expiry of the TRIPS grace period, the alternative in Uganda would be to buy these drugs much more expensively from the original Western manufacturers at prices beyond the reach of the majority Ugandan ARV user.

Aids triple-combination therapy, which costs $10,000 per patient per year in industrialised countries, can now be obtained from Indian generic drugs company, Cipla, for less than $200 per year. Generic Aids drugs enabled millions gain access to Aids treatment in poor countries. The 2013 and 2016 TRIPS deadlines threaten to reverse these gains and turn Aids treatment into a preserve of patients in rich Western world.

Recently, Dr Raymond Byarugaba, head of Uganda Aids Information Centre, announced that this year, there will be 150,000 new HIV infections in Uganda up from 130,000 last year and 100,000 in years before adding to the already rising number of those in need of antiretroviral treatment which they can’t access.

At the moment, passing the Industrial Properties Bill in Uganda, after amending it to take full advantage of the ‘flexibility’ in the TRIPS agreement, which would, inter alia, extend the grace period for manufacturing generic Aids drugs remains the best hope for the thousands on Aids treatment most of whom rely on generic drugs manufactured by Indian pharmaceutical companies such as CIPLA or its subsidiaries in Africa.

On Monday, November 14, the world marked 10 years since the DOHA Declaration, which secured a grace period for developing countries to implement patents for pharmaceutical products. Sadly, poor countries, including Uganda, have not taken full advantage of this grace period and this puts the lives of millions at stake as the clock ticks to the 2013 and 2016 deadlines.

Mr Zakumumpa is an HIV/Aids specialist at Makerere University and a key correspondent for the International HIV/Aids Alliance.
zakumumpa@vetmed.mak.ac.ug

source: http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-/689364/1273764/-/12p0ybxz/-/index.html

Posted on Categories General News, News 443 Comments on Property Rights Leave Access to Medicine Wanting

Property Rights Leave Access to Medicine Wanting

By Flavia Lanyero

Experts have decried the sluggish stride Uganda is making to utilise provisions for flexibilities under the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (Trips), saying such failures will hamper access to medicine in the near future.

The experts highlighted the need to incorporate the flexibilities under the Patent Law to comply with obligations under the World Trade Organisation on protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. “Almost 90 per cent of drugs in Uganda are imports, most of which are generic versions which need protection from patent owners, who may want to stop their sale in a bid to sell their expensive brand name drugs instead; Ugandans would not be able to access cheap drugs,” said Mr Moses Mulumba, a lawyer with Centre for Health Human Rights and Development.

The Doha Declaration, a flexibility of Trips, provides an opportunity to place the protection of public health beyond private commercial interests. It affirms the right of countries to use safeguards such as compulsory licences to overcome patents when necessary to promote access to medicines for all.

Today marks 10 years of the Doha Declaration but the Industrial Property Bill, which is supposed to incorporate Trips, has not been passed into law. Technocrats in the Ministry of Trade say the Bill has been delayed in Parliament since 2009.

Mr Mulumba said it will be unfortunate if by 2013 Uganda has not made an effort to pass the industrial property law.

Source: All Africa.com/The Monitor

http://allafrica.com/stories/201111140191.html

Posted on Categories News 272 Comments on The Maternal Health Coalition waits for Judges in Vain

The Maternal Health Coalition waits for Judges in Vain

Activists have demanded urgent Government action to end preventable maternal deaths. The Constitutional Court hearing of Petition No. 16 of 2011 scheduled for the 7th of July at 9.30 am, was not heard. The petition argues that by not providing essential medical commodities and services to pregnant women, government is violating the constitutional rights of Ugandans including the right to health, right to life and the rights of women.

Highlighting the death of a mother in Mityana district Sylvia Nalubowa, and a district Councilor in Arua, Jannifer Anguko who both died while giving birth due to negligence of health workers, the Petitioner Ms. Nakibuuka Noor for this case from Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) had made a case.

It was unfortunate that no judge came to have this case heard; this has forced concerned Ugandans to storm court. She adds that, it was communicated by the registrar of the constitutional court that the case could not be heard due to lack of quorum, however it should be noted that this is a human rights case which is supposed to be heard expeditiously.

Many reports of maternal deaths have been reported across the country since the ground breaking case of Sylvia and Jennifer (deceased) case was filed on 3rd March 2011. This is a continuous violation of human rights, it is a shame, government is not making the health of Ugandans and women a priority, the lawyers are saying they were not saved, and have just got to know now. “We are tired, the more court postpones the better to set ourselves, the higher risks and more deaths, empty words cannot work, let us hope that the constitutional court will understand the unacceptable plight that expectant mothers face in Uganda.” Says Hilda Kironde of Uganda community based association for child welfare.

The leading causes of maternal death in Uganda include the massive shortage of trained health workers to attend to births, lack of access to emergency obstetric care for responding to hemorrhage, lack of access to quality antenatal care, and lack of access to family planning services.
If the government of Uganda provides these services in time and in all health centers, and referral hospitals, then this would reduce the death of 16 women every day during child birth in Uganda.
Source: Partners Uganda eforum 2011
http://eforums.healthdev.org/read/messages?id=30551

Posted on Categories General News 300 Comments on HIV afflicted boy rots away as ARVs dry up

HIV afflicted boy rots away as ARVs dry up

By Sadab Kitatta Kaaya

Five-year-old Fred Twinomugisha tested HIV positive about four years ago, after the death of his mother, Jessica Tukamuhaabwa.  Due to his deteriorating condition, he was immediately started on anti-retroviral therapy (ART), which he would access from Lwebitakuli Health Centre III, about 15km from his home in Lwendezi village, Lwebitakuli sub-county, Sembabule district.

Godfrey Ngabirano, Twinomugisha’s maternal uncle and guardian, tried in vain to establish contact with the boy’s father.  “My sister [Tukamuhaabwa] died before she could tell us the father of her child,” Ngabirano says. “All the three men who had previously claimed responsibility rejected the boy when they learnt of his HIV status.”

Of the three men, Ngabirano can only identify one Kisuule of Kirebe village and a Ronald of Kasambya village in Lwebitakuli. After they disowned the boy, Ngabirano could not sit back and watch his nephew waste away. He shouldered the responsibility of regularly taking him to Lwebitakuli health centre for ART.

Unfortunately, for the last five months he has not been able to access ARVs at Lwebitakuli after the health centre ran short of supplies.  “I had taken him on his clinic day, but the nurses referred us to Mateete health centre,” Ngabirano says.

Mateete health centre had no drugs either, and health workers there referred them further, to Masaka regional referral hospital. However, this peasant family could not afford the transport fare to Masaka and chose to wait until the district gets new ARVs supplies.

Besides, they might have failed to get assistance from Masaka hospital too, after its CD4 blood count machine broke down recently, leaving hundreds of AIDS patients stranded. Five months on, there remains little hope that ARVs will be brought to a health facility within Twinomugisha’s proximity, yet the effect of the break in treatment is already evident, as the little boy is growing frail.

He moves with a lot of unease as he watches his contemporaries run about the family compound. His body is developing sores, and some on his feet and fingers are open. As a result, his friends avoid him.

“Even if they wanted to play with him, there is no way he can match their pace. Besides, we fear that others could get infected through direct contact with him,” Ngabirano says.

Gloom in Sembabule

Twinomugisha is certainly not the only AIDS patient in the district suffering this way. According to Strides for Family Health, a health promotion NGO in Sembabule, the number of people testing HIV positive is on the rise in the district.

The NGO’s spokesperson, Thadeus Atuhura, puts the prevalence rates in Sembabule at about 40%, according to information gathered in their voluntary counselling and testing programme that is part of Strides’ outreach programme in the district.

“In Lwebitakuli sub-county alone, we have so far tested about 1,000 people, and about 400 of them have tested HIV positive, mainly women and their children,” Atuhura told The Observer.

Source: The Observer

www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content..

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