Source: The Nigeria-AIDS eForum - http://www.nigeria-aids.org

Nigeria: Advocates win provisions for public health

By Olayide Akanni
Nigeria-AIDS eForum

A meeting to revise final drafts of an Intellectual
Property (IP) bill for Nigeria ended in Abuja last Friday,
with health advocates winning vital clauses that would
protect right of Nigerians to access to cheap and
affordable treatment.

The new bill is being drafted in compliance with the
Agreements on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS), to which Nigeria is a signatory.
The Abuja meeting was particularly important as it made
final decisions on the draft bill, which will, among other
things, regulate mechanisms for access to affordable
medicines by the Nigerian government in public health
emergencies, such as HIV/AIDS.

Jointly organized by the Commercial Law Development
Programme of the United States Department of Commerce, the
federal ministry of commerce, the Nigerian Copyright
Commission, National Office of Technology Acquisition and
Promotion (NOTAP) and the Nigerian Intellectual Property
Bar, the meeting was funded by the US Agency for
International Development.

Extensive deliberations over the three-day meeting, which
held at the Nicon Hilton Hotel, resulted in the inclusion
and simplification of important language in the bill,
relating to safeguards for the protection of public health.

The bill now includes stronger provisions authorizing the
implementation of health safe guards such as compulsory
licensing, parallel importation and Bolar exceptions,
recommended under TRIPS.

The provisions were not won easily however. Critical civil
society groups in Nigeria had been excluded from
preparations for the meeting and only became aware of its
importance barely a week to the event. Health advocates,
under the platform of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAM) -
a coalition of civil society groups working in the area of
HIV/AIDS treatment and care - had immediately protested to
organizers about their non-inclusion and demanded for an
invitation to participate at the Abuja meeting. TAM members
also circulated press statements and called a press
conference in Abuja on the eve of the meeting to register
their displeasure over non- involvement of treatment groups
in such and important policy-making process.

The activists argued that the absence of input especially
of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in the drafting
process could likely jeopardize the on-going national
antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programme, particularly if
important health safeguards such as Bolar exceptions,
compulsory licensing and parallel importation are not
explicitly included in the bill.

Following the protests, seven representatives of TAM were
able to fully participate in the meeting. The
representatives were Mohammed Farouk, Rolake Nwagwu and
Mary Ashie (AIDS Alliance in Nigeria), Obatunde Oladapo
(Positive Life Association of Nigeria), Ebenezer Durojaye
and Ifeanyi Okekearu (Centre for the Right to Health) and
Olayide Akanni (Journalists Against AIDS Nigeria). Dr.
Nasir Sani-Gwarzo of the federal ministry of health and Dr.
Jerome Mafeni of Policy Project/Nigeria also attended the
three-day meeting.

Delegates attending the workshop were drafted into three
working groups and were expected to review and make final
recommendations on corrections made in an earlier draft of
the bill developed at a meeting last April. The working
group on Patents and Designs dealt with the sections
containing the health safeguards and many of the health
advocates attending the meeting naturally gravitated
towards that group.

Reviewing the draft bill, the advocates found out that many
of its provisions concerning the health safeguards were
confusing and not expressed in clear language. After
extensive deliberations, participants were able to come up
with clearer working language for the draft sections of the
proposed Patent and Industrial Designs Act.

Some of the mechanisms now included in the draft bill were:
the setting-up of an administrative procedure which will
govern the issuance of compulsory licensing, extension of
authority to issue a compulsory license to health
commissioners, and the deletion of confusing clauses in the
provisions under parallel importation.

The reviewed draft IP bill is to be presented to the
Ministries of Commerce and Justice before its passage to
the National Assembly and eventual enactment into law.

Members of TAM have pledged to follow the progress of the
draft bill through these various stages in order to ensure
that the IP Act that would be passed into law by the
national assembly truly reflects the full interests of
public health.

Olayide Akanni
Email: [email protected]
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