Activists protest India-EU trade deal
A group of activists staged a demonstraton here to protest against EU-India trade deal which they allege have a severe negative impact.
By PTI | Updated:
NEW DELHI: A group of activists on Friday staged a demonstraton here to protest against the EU-India trade deal which they allege have a severe negative impact on access to affordable medicine for people in developing countries.
"If the deal is finalised, it will mean less money to us, thus less medicine and consequently we can treat only a few patients" said Leena, organiser of India chapter of Medicine Sans Frontier.
Rosalyn, whose husband is a HIV positive, said "medicines help us to live a normal physical and mental life. If this deal is finalised, it will cost us our lives, please help us in your own way so that we can have a better future ahead".
Existing trade rules already limit the possiblity of making generic versions of new medicines but the EU-India FTA "threatens" to make this situation "even worse by creating new intellectual property (IP) barriers", she said.
"This issue has passed with a very little public discussion. No one had any say about this deal, we would ask parliamentarians and people countrywide to hold debates and find out who is going to be affected by this deal before finalising it", Biraj Patnaik said.
India has been called the 'pharmacy of the developing world' because it produces quality affordable generic medicines that most of the worldwide organisations, including MSF, rely on to treat millions of people.
"Without drug registration, even MSF could be dragged to court for patent disputes" Leena added.
"If the deal is finalised, it will mean less money to us, thus less medicine and consequently we can treat only a few patients" said Leena, organiser of India chapter of Medicine Sans Frontier.
Rosalyn, whose husband is a HIV positive, said "medicines help us to live a normal physical and mental life. If this deal is finalised, it will cost us our lives, please help us in your own way so that we can have a better future ahead".
Existing trade rules already limit the possiblity of making generic versions of new medicines but the EU-India FTA "threatens" to make this situation "even worse by creating new intellectual property (IP) barriers", she said.
"This issue has passed with a very little public discussion. No one had any say about this deal, we would ask parliamentarians and people countrywide to hold debates and find out who is going to be affected by this deal before finalising it", Biraj Patnaik said.
India has been called the 'pharmacy of the developing world' because it produces quality affordable generic medicines that most of the worldwide organisations, including MSF, rely on to treat millions of people.
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"Without drug registration, even MSF could be dragged to court for patent disputes" Leena added.
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