Johannesburg — INTERNATIONAL development and relief agency Oxfam called on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Friday to review the effect of its intellectual property agreement, saying it had done little to open up access to lifesaving medicines.

The WTO patent provisions on health have been a bone of contention between rich and developing countries that have been hit hard by HIV/AIDS.

WTO members agreed on the intellectual property rules and health declaration at a 2001 Doha ministerial meeting.

In terms of the public health safeguards, developing countries can access generic versions of patented medicines. Nongovernmental organisations have supported this initiative.

"Generic competition is the most sustainable way to keep prices of medicines down," Oxfam said in a statement on Friday.

In a report published on Friday, Oxfam said developed countries had done little to effect the safeguards.

"Rich countries have broken the spirit of the Doha declaration.

"We have gone backwards. People are still suffering and dying needlessly," Oxfam's Celine Charveriat said.

Oxfam said 77% of Africans had no access to AIDS treatment, while 30% of the world's population did not have regular access to essential medicines.

"There are many reasons for this but the most important is that rich countries, particularly the US, are bullying developing countries to impose stricter intellectual property rules in order to preserve pharmaceutical monopolies. This is restricting generic competition and keeping prices high, it said.

"Developing countries have a responsibility to use public health safeguards but when they try to do so, they are put under huge pressure," Oxfam said.

Oxfam said, in its free trade agreement negotiations with developing countries, the US insisted on what the organisation said were stricter-than-usual intellectual property rules.

"Global health statistics are grim but the US continues to negotiate trade deals with even stricter rules that limit how a country can use public health safeguards," Charveriat said.