KENYA: Another challenge to drug monopolies

BY NORM DIXON

Following the lead of Brazil and South Africa, Kenya announced on March 6 that it plans to relax its patent laws to enable its population to buy cheaper drugs to fight HIV/AIDS.

Health minister Sam Ongeri said he would introduce a bill to legalise the parallel importation of anti-retroviral drugs. Kenya's announcement coincided with legal action by the world's largest drug corporations against a law in South Africa that allow "parallel importation" of anti-AIDS drugs. Parallel importing is the practice of shopping around for the cheapest available source of brand-name drugs.

An estimated 14% of Kenya's population is HIV positive. According to official statistics, 600 Kenyans die of AIDS every day. "What greater emergency can there be?", Ongeri asked. World Trade Organisation regulations allow drug patents to be overridden by governments in cases of "dire emergency".

"We cannot operate in a situation where we have a national disaster declared and keep on being asked to observe patents", Ongeri said. "We want to open a window in the law. We can have parallel importation", he declared.

"The use of anti-retroviral drugs is out of reach for the ordinary Kenyan. If we had to treat all patients, we would need 12 billion shillings (US$150 million), when Kenya's budget for the whole health sector is 9 billion shillings", Ongeri stated.

From GLW issue 440