Kigali — Rwanda will become the first government to use global trade rules to override pharmaceutical patents and import generic drugs. The country expects to buy 260,000 packs during the next two years of TriAvir, a fixed-dose combination of the widely used anti-AIDS drugs lamivudine, zidovudine and nevirapine.The generic product is manufactured in Canada by Apotex.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) said in a statement last week that the submission was made last Tuesday by the Treatment and Research AIDS Centre (TRAC).

The notification, according to the release, helps the country to undertake 2005 WTO agreement of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Public Health, which prescribes the importation and exportation of pharmaceutical product to the markets of various countries.

"Rwanda has so far declared to WTO her intention to import during the next two years 260,000 packs of HIV/Aids drugs manufactured by Apotex Inc in Canada" says the release.

Under WTO rules, countries can issue compulsory licenses to disregard patent rights, but only after negotiating with the patent owners and paying them adequate compensation. An agreement in 2003 allowed poorer countries to import the drugs from abroad if they cannot produce the medicines themselves.

"Because it is not possible to predict with certainty the extent of the country's public health needs, we reserve the right to modify the foregoing estimate as necessary or appropriate," Rwanda said in a letter released Friday by the WTO. Combivir, made by GlaxoSmithKline of Britain, contains lamivudine and zidovudine. Nevirapine is a generic version of Viramune, made by Boehringer Ingelheim of Germany.

The international aid group Oxfam says that the patent-busting procedure is almost never used because developing countries face pressure from wealthy governments acting on behalf of their drug companies.

In a report last year Oxfam said that 74 percent of Aids medicines were under monopoly, and that 77 percent of Africans lacked any access to Aids treatment. "Rwanda is making a bold move," Céline Charveriat of Oxfam, said. "This provision was set up to ensure poor countries get access to affordable medicines."Brazil and Thailand have recently issued compulsory licenses to develop cheap generic versions of U.S. AIDS drugs, among other medicines.

Many Aids patients have developed resistance to older anti-retrovirals and now need more expensive, second-line drugs.

The development follows the 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration, which in helped revise the then hurdles within TRIPS agreement where countries were only allowed to export 49 percent of such production.

WTO member states have to implement the 2005 decision into their national law in order to use it, and separately, they have to accept it in order for it to come into force.