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NGOs calls on WTO to ease generic drug access

    JOHANNESBURG

    The international medical NGO Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) on Monday called on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to ease access to cheap generic medicines for poor countries.

    "The United States and other industrial powers should not limit the types of generic drugs that poor countries can import," MSF's coordinator of international access campaigns, Marta Darder, told the UN news service Plusnews.

    Darder said trade in medicines should not be used as a negotiation card in multilateral trade talks as public health was in an alarming state in poor nations.

    An informal meeting of WTO trade ministers in Japan this week will focus on the problem of side-stepping patents to ensure access to life-saving drugs for countries without pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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