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Key Documents archive results 1-9 of 9 in Health and Access to medicine
Trade and Health
This series of commentaries and papers, published by The Lancet, examines the challenges to achieving a balance between trade and health. It includes analyses of the WHO and World Trade Organisation (WTO), arguing that they facilitate trade before the health of poor people. Other authors...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January 2009 | EN
HIV drug policies and South markets: settling controversies
This paper proposes a model to provide better access to fairly priced antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for HIV-infected people in poor countries, while also safeguarding the interests of ARV manufacturers. The authors explain what governments and brand and generic companies are doing to increase the...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: September 2008 | EN
Expanding priorities — confronting chronic disease in countries with low income
Cardiovascular disease accounts for 30% of deaths worldwide and 10% of all years of healthy life lost to disease, and the figures are nearly as high in developing countries -- 27 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. This compares with 10% of lives lost worldwide from HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria put...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January, 2007 | EN
Therapeutic vaccination for chronic diseases: a new class of drugs in sight
Vaccination for infectious diseases is a vital method of prophylaxis, and has transformed modern medicine. By contrast, research into vaccines against chronic diseases has been less successful, in part because of the increased complexity involved. In this opinion piece, the authors outline the...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January, 2004 | EN
Compulsory licensing and parallel importing
This background paper describes the basic principles behind two strategies that could be used to bring down the price of drug therapies: parallel importing (bringing drugs from another country) and compulsory licensing (restricting the monopoly rights of existing patent holders to permit generic...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: July 1999 | EN
TRIPS and development
This background briefing sets out in plain language the development aspects of intellectual property rules, from the UK governmentSs perspective. It describes the controversies surrounding intellectual property, lists the potential costs and benefits, outlines research into the 'appropriate level'...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: September 2001 | EN
Drug development for neglected diseases: a deficient market and a public-health policy failure
The so-called 10/90 gap in health research -- which refers to the fact that only about 10 per cent of funding is targeted to diseases which account for 90 per cent of the global disease burden -- is a well recognised phenomenon which is being targeted by a number of initiatives. This article, by...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: June 2002 | EN
Compulsory licensing: models for state practice in developing countries, access to medicine and comp
This paper was prepared by the director of the US-based Consumer Project on Technology for the United Nations Development Programme. It examines the use of a patent without permission of the patent owner. The article focuses on models for compulsory licensing and government use of patents as a...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: January 2001 | EN
Approaching intellectual property as a human right: obligations related to article 15 (1) (c)
A detailed discussion paper that presents a human rights approach to intellectual property rights. The paper was submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for its discussion on "The right of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests...
KEY DOCUMENT | Publication date: November 2000 | EN
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Missed the Global Health Forum 2009?
Our blog, by SciDev.Net columnist Priya Shetty, will fill you in, as will our interview with the Global Forum's Gill Samuels
