AIDS activists continue campaign to stop EU-India FTA

The international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) marched alongside more than two thousand people living with HIV from across Asia and the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health in New Delhi yesterday, urging the Indian government to stand strong amid pressure from the European Union to accept provisions in a free trade agreement (FTA) that would restrict access to affordable medicines, as sensitive negotiations were taking place in Brussels (The Pharma Letters passim).

“More than 80% of the AIDS drugs our medical practitioners use to treat 175,000 people in developing countries are affordable generics from India,” said Paul Cawthorne, of MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. “Beyond AIDS, we rely on producers in India for drugs to treat other illnesses, such as tuberculosis and malaria. We cannot afford to let our patients’ lifeline be cut,” he added.

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