Right to medicines
In the UN, organizations denounce barriers to treatment and call for binding agreement on business and human rights
Human rights organizations criticized in the United Nations Human Rights Council, in Geneva, the barriers to access to medicines that still exist in Brazil. The statement was made today, October 28, during the second session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights.
The organizations highlighted the negative impact that patent monopolies have on the cost of treatment, aggravating epidemics such as AIDS.
“Thanks to the strong pressure and mobilization of civil society, access to medicines has been guaranteed since 1996. The right to health is protected by the Constitution and we have a public health care system whose main principle is the universality of access to health care. However, all these legal guarantees are insufficient to prevent the high price of AIDS medicines from seriously threatening the capacity of the Brazilian State to provide universal treatment that is free of charge,” they said.
As an illustration, the organizations cited the example of sofosbuvir, a hepatitis C drug produced by Gilead Sciences that is sold to the Brazilian government for US$7,000 – an amount 3500% higher than its cost of production.
As a result of the high cost, the Brazilian government will only be able to guarantee treatment for all patients with hepatitis C in 2075. However, if it were sold at the lowest price (generic versions are already available for US$200), the government would be able to treat all patients by 2019.
At the end of the statement, Conectas, ABIA (Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association), GTPI (Working Group on Intellectual Property) and RedLAM (Latin American Network for Access to Medicines) called for the urgent adoption of a binding treaty that could hold to account pharmaceutical companies and other transnational companies that violate human rights.
