Mister Chairman, Members of the Committee A.

I am speaking on behalf of Consumers International, Health Action International, Medecins sans Frontieres,Oxfam, and Save the Children Fund, U.K.

Thank you for this opportunity to address the Committee.

During her speech to the Assembly the Director General stated that the WHO has come a long way in making essential medicines accessible to a much larger number than we could have envisaged even only three years ago. We praise the progress so far and agree with her that there is much more to do.

We believe that access to basic healthcare is a fundamental human right and that unhindered access to essential medicines is an important component of this right. We are pleased to see that WHO has led a number of important developments recently in improving global access to medicines, particularly in the provision of drug price information data, the pre-qualification process for medicines, and the recent revision to WHO’s model list of essential medicines. This revised process promises to be more independent, transparent, evidence-based and more useable for member states. We are particularly pleased that the high cost of drugs is no longer a barrier for inclusion in the Essential Medicines List.

In the 109^th Session of the WHO Executive Board in January this year we heard many board members praise the Doha declaration which states unequivocally that the agreement "can and should be implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members’ right to protect public health and, in particular to promote access to medicines for all".

In this light, we believe that the WHO should remain fully engaged in health and access to medicines issues, as these issues are too important to be left to the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization who do not have health as a central part of their mandate. WHO should therefore step up and take a leadership role by providing technical assistance to member states on how to put health first when implementing intellectual property legislation.

A particular opportunity to assert WHO leadership is at the TRIPS Council in June when the Council discusses the export issue related to compulsory licensing. WHO should support the developing countries’ call for exceptions to allow export of essential medicines produced under compulsory licensing to other countries, which may not have production capacity themselves.

We were pleased to see that 10 antiretroviral drugs were added to the core essential medicines list, however drug prices, particularly antiretrovirals, are still too high. Again we urge WHO to help countries bring down prices by stimulating competition (through compulsory licensing or parallel imports) or working towards unrestricted systematic differential pricing policies.

In March we were heartened to see WHO release its first list of pre-qualified AIDS drugs including patented and generic medicines. Of part of this standard-setting role, we urge the WHO to expand its pre-qualification work to drugs for malaria, tuberculosis and other major infectious diseases and urge Member states to increase financial support for these efforts and to make use of the information.

We are particularly concerned with the trend towards so-called partnerships with commercial entities which may jeopardise WHO’s independence. We urge WHO to analyse the health and social outcomes and sustainability of these initiatives in an open and transparent manner. Further, the status of WHO’s guidelines to address potential conflict-of-interest issues associated with interactions with the private sector is unclear, as is the progress made in WHO’s work in addressing conflict-of-interest in general. We urge WHO to accelerate these efforts and to actively involve civil society in the process.

Thank you Mister Chairmain for this opportunity to address the Committee on these important issues.