Minutes - TRIPS Council - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador Mero (United Republic of Tanzania)
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
13 The United Nations Secretary-General's High-Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines
704. On behalf of UNAIDS and UNDP who played the role of Secretariat of the HLP, we would like to thank Brazil, China, India and South Africa for bringing this issue for the consideration of the TRIPS Council. The HLP had very limited time to deliberate on its recommendations. I thank UNCTAD and WHO for their interventions because they covered very well the fact that the Panel viewed the recommendations on existing initiatives that are also member States driven. I think that, as was very well presented by my colleague from WHO, the Panel built upon the Global Strategy on Intellectual Property, Public Health from WTO and also the recommendations from the CEWG, but I would like to call the attention to the intervention from the Holy See in terms of the pace of implementation of the initiatives that to have in the future. 705. In the area of HIV/AIDS, for instance, we still have 54% of the people living with HIV who are not accessing medicines that exist. There is a problem in terms of access. Of course, IP is not the only problem. Trade is not the only problem. I would like to call your attention as well to the recent launch of the Report from the Lancet Commission on Access to Medicines that could cover other aspects of the access to medicines equation, including yesterday's article from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands commending the recommendations from the HLP as well and saying that the recommendations from the Lancet Commission and the recommendations of the HLP are complementary, as they complement other existing initiatives. 706. I think South Africa's suggestion to continue the discussion is very important and I would like to invite you to come to the next Programme Coordinating Board meeting when this discussion will happen once again in December. I invite you to talk with your colleagues sitting on the Board and you are welcome to bring the trade perspective to this discussion.
The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to take the matter up as an ad hoc agenda item at its next meeting.
70. The Chairman said that Brazil, China, India and South Africa had requested that this item be added to the agenda. They had submitted a communication that briefly introduced the item, circulated in document IP/C/W/619.

71. The representatives of India, Brazil, South Africa, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Russian Federation, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Chile, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Plurinational State of Bolivia and Norway took the floor.

72. The representatives of the Holy See, WHO, UNCTAD, and UNAIDS took the floor.

73. The representative of the Secretariat took the floor.

74. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to take the matter up as an ad hoc agenda item at its next meeting.

IP/C/M/83, IP/C/M/83/Add.1