Moroccan Anti-AIDS association criticizes WTO agreement on generic medicine

The Moroccan association against AIDS (ALCS) denounced the agreement reached on August 30 at the World Trade Organization on the importation by poor countries of generic drugs.

The association says the agreement is no solution to the problem of access to medicine. It also argues that the agreement actually imposes a series of complex administrative and legal constraints to developing countries, both importing and exporting ones, in order to protect interests of the western pharmaceutical industries at the expense of the health of millions of persons in the world.

In addition to being hard to implement, says the association, they will restrict the availability of medicine instead of easing access to those in need of treatment.

It said ALCS joins other international NGO's in denouncing the agreement that was imposed on developing countries under the pressure of rich countries and the lobbies of pharmaceutical industries, in total contradiction with the Doha declaration that placed public health above any mercantile considerations.