Protests over Patents Act
Health activists demanded that the Patents Act be amended, since the rights it grants to companies for exclusive production of a new drug have resulted in the drugs being unaffordable by those who need them most.
Picketing in support of government-proposed patent law reforms, a group of health activists handed over their submission commenting on the Draft National Police on Intellectual Property, 2013 to the Department of Trade and Industry in Sunnyside last Thursday.
The activists included members of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Section 27 and members of the public who urged the government to act swiftly in reforming patent laws to save lives.
The protest was part of the Fix the Patent Laws campaign headed by the TAC, which is a non-profit organisation that seeks to ensure that every person living with HIV has access to quality, comprehensive prevention and treatment service to live a healthy life.
These organisations were demanding access to affordable medicines. Among the protesters was a former drug-resistant TB patient, Phumeza Tisile, who shared her difficult experience. Tisile’s journey to curing her TB was extremely long, as she was first diagnosed late and then provided with the wrong medication for a long time.
“It is a miracle that I am alive and cured today,” Tisile said. Even though Tisile is cured, she is now deaf due to treatment she was underwent. She found herself forced to taking Linezolid, tablets which cost R676 each. Linezolid, which she took for about 18 months, was part of the 20 tablets she was taking daily. MSF assisted Tisile to access the expensive drug for free. Tisile was one of 300 patients who needed the drug, but MSF managed to provide it to only 22 patients because of the high price of the medication.
The MSF made the shocking discovery that the same drug of the same quality was available for only R80 in India. They blamed patent laws for the disparity, since these prevented other companies from producing the drug. The current patent laws limit the right to produce the drug to one company, which prevents competition between producers.
Among the long list of protestors’ recommendations was that the Patents Act be amended to include stricter ‘patentability’ criteria and in the context of medicine of other health-related products, new uses and methods of treatment should expressly be precluded from being granted patent protection.
