Statement on ARVs access for all

July 14th 2004
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According to Thai prime minister (PM), Dr.Taksin Shinawatr, announcement to the global community on the opening ceremony of the XV International AIDS Conference on July 11th 2004 that ‘Thailand will provide ARVs to all AIDS patients’ including the command to Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) to produce cheap ARVs and also requested all nations to follow the lead. He furthermore secured the policy to treat IDUs as patients not criminals and to provide safe syringes and needles for prevention of AIDS spreading.

Drug Study Group (DSG) and ally organizations urge Thai PM to urgently implement this policy extensively and to treat the announcement seriously not as careless speech. Otherwise the PM will receive condemn globally as a liar. Thailand will thus be still recognized as leader in providing ARVs to all AIDS patients within the country as well as neighboring country.

Thai government has to ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ the following thing urgently.

1.To promulgate the compulsory licensing of patented ARVs. This can be done without delay since Thai patent law allows the government to do so for health problem solving purposes. Efavirenz is particularly concern in order for Thai GPO to produce cheap new generic ARVs apart from GPO-vir which is expected to be resisted after using for some years or allergic. ARVs are all known to be used with all lifespan.

2.To amend current patent law on the section 46 and 51 in order to comply with TRIPs agreement (paragraph 6 of doha declaration) which was adopted on August 30th, 2003 to allow country to produce all patented drugs in order to solve nation’s health problems and export. Canada has already implemented this clause in May 14th, 2004.


3.Not to include intellectual property rights protection in health and drugs in the agenda for free trade agreement (FTA) negotiation with the US or other countries. Details in the bilateral negotiation on FTA from the US and developed countries namely TRIPs-plus cover beyond multilateral TRIPS agreement. These create high price with patented essential drugs and are burden to the poor. The TRIPs-Plus statement in FTA are:
3.1.The extension of patent life from 20 years to 25 years;
3.2.Introduce new market exclusivity via data exclusivity;
3.3.The limitation on compulsory licensing measure and parallel import blocks the right of generic production

Drug Study Group (DSG)
Thai Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS (TNP+)
Thai NGO Coalition on AIDS (TNCA)
AIDS Access Foundation (ACCESS)
Foundation For Consumer (FFC)
Center for AIDS Rights (CAR)
FTA WATCH-Thai Citizen Sector