55. The representative of the Slovak Republic said that he favoured a solution under Article 31(f) of the TRIPS Agreement. Such a solution would facilitate compulsory licensing in order to address public health problems in other WTO Members. It would, he said, also enable Members in need of such products for which they had no or insufficient production capacity to ensure supply under compulsory licensing. As to scope and product coverage, he was of the opinion that it should include pharmaceutical products which were necessary to deal with public health problems afflicting many developing countries, especially HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics. He said that it should not, however, be limited to these diseases as the list was only an illustrative one. On the scope of diseases, he said that this should be left open-ended and not made definitive. He preferred a case-by-case approval method although beneficiary importing countries could be any WTO Member country and not just least-developed countries and developing countries. It should include low-income Members with no or insufficient domestic manufacturing capacity based on a definition for which further clarification was required.
