Should poor governments be allowed to break drug patents for humanitarian reasons? That question is front-and-centre at a major public health conference sponsored by the World Health Organisation that started on 28 April in Geneva.

Top-notch policy experts from around the world have gathered to make formal policy recommendations about patents to Third World governments struggling with disease.

Many will claim that patents allow Western drug companies to keep drug prices artificially high, and that patent-breaking is a cheap and easy way to get poor patients the drugs they need. They're wrong on both counts. For starters, the drugs needed in the developing world aren't patent protected.

A 2004 study published in the journal Health Affairs showed that less than two per cent of the 319 prescription drugs on the WHO's Model List of Essential Medicines are actually under patent. What patients in the Third World need aren't patent-busting bureaucrats, but more roads, doctors, hospitals, nutritious food, and good sanitation.

When roads are in disrepair, it can be particularly difficult to reach rural populations, where disease burden is highest.

In places with no electricity, temperature-sensitive pills often go bad before anyone can benefit from them.

Refrigerated Coca-Cola vans have been shipping polio vaccines to the hinterlands of Cameroon, because most roads are unmotorable. Even if roads were available and medicines were donated, they must be prescribed by qualified medical staff.

Patients will also need good drinking water and a good meal to enhance recovery from disease. However, the doctor-patient ratio is abysmally low and close to 60 per cent of Africans do not have access to good sanitation.

Patents are actually a critical part of the solution. They protect the financial incentives that drive pharmaceutical companies to create innovative medications in the first place.

It takes an average of $800 million and 10-15 years to bring a new drug to the market. Patents ensure that pharmaceutical companies can recoup that enormous investment.

If countries start breaking patents, though, firms lose out on sales. And they're less able to finance the development of new cures. That's a blow to the public health efforts of all countries, rich and poor.

Many important steps need to be to taken to improve medical care in the Third World. Stealing drug patents and stifling the creation of life-saving medicines is not one of them.

Cudjoe is executive director of IMANI Centre for Policy and Education in Ghana.