Patents or patients?
The Thai government butts heads with the pharmaceutical giants over drug patents.
Social activist Jon ungphakorn |
The World Health Organisation estimates that 10 million people die needlessly every year because they cannot get hold of the right drugs.
This puts Bangkok at the forefront of the global debate over how to widen access to life-saving drugs while preserving intellectual property protection as an incentive for innovation. Upping the ante, US-based Abbott Laboratories says it will withhold a new HIV treatment from Thailand, where half a million people are carrying the HIV virus.
Ed Kelly represents drug firms in Thailand |
101 East
talks to 12-year-old Im, whose mother and father died of infections caused by Aids when she was a baby. They had already passed HIV on to her. Her survival is the result of Thailand’s anti-retroviral drug programme which was launched in 2003 and now provides drugs for about 80,000 HIV positive people at minimal cost.Former Thai senator and prominent social activist Jon Ungphakorn tells presenter Teymoor Nabili that the Thai government is setting a great example.
Watch this episode of 101 East here:
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQQQtOx1co
Part 2
Watch 101 East at 16.30 GMT every Friday on Al Jazeera English and repeated during the week.
To contact us click on ‘Send your feedback’ at the top of the page