WOZA (Johannesburg)
By Marjolein Harvey
17 April 2001
With what it calls "new evidence", AIDS activist organisation the Treatment Action Campaign is expected to make a statement to counter the pharmaceutical affidavit when the court case between government and the pharmaceutical industry resumes at the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday, April 18
Last week, the health department said the case may be referred to the Constitutional Court, should the Pretoria High Court so decide, reported Bua News/government communications. Health department director-general Ayanda Ntsaluba hopes the Constitutional Court will speed up the process in the interests of the public. He was speaking to the press in Pretoria last week.
Together with international doctors' charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), Oxfam and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the TAC will carry out a press conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
The organisations say they politically support the TAC's position, and will call on other governments to support government in this case.
"As amicus curiae, the TAC affidavit will present new evidence, questioning the profit margins of the pharmaceutical industry, and giving evidence as to who really pays the cost of Research and Development," MSF spokesperson Samantha Bolton said in a statement on Monday.
"The TAC will show how recent cost reductions of drugs by the pharmaceutical industry are a short term result of public pressure, and do not replace the need for law to ensure long term solutions for access to affordable medicines by governments and patients."
The TAC and their supporters claim that worldwide condemnation of the pharmaceutical industry's case against government continues to grow.
"In just five weeks, 250 000 signatures to a petition calling on the drug companies to drop the case will have been collected. The petition will be presented to the pharmaceutical industry publicly, on Tuesday," says Bolton.
The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association - which represents the largely US-based, multinational pharmaceutical industry in SA - took government to the high court, contesting the validity of the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act of 1997.
The association is against the Act's section 15(c), which allows government powers to bypass patent laws, and locally manufacture and import generic drugs without prior warning to the patent holder.
Presiding judge president Bernard Ngoepe adjourned the case last month, after the TAC was admitted as the friend of the court in the matter. The case was postponed to allow the applicants and the defendants to submit their affidavits before the court.
Bua News reports that Ntsaluba said if government lost the case, "it would be much more on legal technicalities and we would amend the legislation".
However, hopes were still high the State would win the case and begin implementing the contested provisions of the legislation. Once the case was won, government would move swiftly to obtain generic drugs, set up a pricing committee to advise government on drug prices and import drugs from other countries.
"We respect the rule of law and we want to be responsible players in the field," Ntsaluba was reported as saying by Bua News.
Reacting to recent accusations by the Democratic Alliance that health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang misled Parliament by denying that drug companies had made offers of affordable drugs to government, Ntsaluba said drug companies had not come to affordable levels about drug offers to roll out to the masses affected by HIV/AIDS.
He said obtaining antiretrovirals was not the only solution to dealing with the epidemic, adding there were other challenges the disease posed.
"We do not have to lose focus because there are diseases such as TB and malaria. We face the danger of deflecting attention from other diseases that burdens Africa," he said.
The PMA was not able to comment at the time of writing, but is expected to make a statement later on Tuesday.
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