Klug, Heinz --- "Pharmaceutical Production and Access to Essential Medicines in South Africa" [2011] ELECD 954; in Shadlen, C. Kenneth; Guennif, Samira; Guzmán , Alenka; Lalitha, N. (eds), "Intellectual Property, Pharmaceuticals and Public Health" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Intellectual Property, Pharmaceuticals and Public Health

Editor(s): Shadlen, C. Kenneth; Guennif, Samira; Guzmán , Alenka; Lalitha, N.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800143

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Pharmaceutical Production and Access to Essential Medicines in South Africa

Author(s): Klug, Heinz

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

2. Pharmaceutical production and
access to essential medicines in
South Africa
Heinz Klug

Access to affordable essential medicines has become a central public policy
issue in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly in the context of the
country's HIV/AIDS pandemic. While it is clearly true that drug prices
are not the only issue limiting access to essential medicines, the cost of
medicines remains a central concern because unlike the broader structural
goal of upgrading the health care system or more immediate concern to
monitor treatment adherence among HIV/AIDS patients, there are just
no substitutes or alternatives to the provision of these particular drugs.
To this extent the cost of the medicines is in fact the "inelastic" part of
the essential medicines equation. This is particularly the case in South
Africa which is not a significant producer of pharmaceutical products and
does not produce over 90 percent of the active ingredients of medicines.
Lacking the capacity to credibly threaten to issue compulsory licenses and
if necessary reverse-engineer patented drugs, as have Brazil and Thailand,
South Africa's bargaining power is limited to a moral claim that access
to essential medicines is a constitutional and humanitarian necessity to
address the severe disease burden in the region, including HIV/AIDS, TB,
malaria and other diseases.
However, in response to both market and public incentives, from the
government's 2003 decision to provide antiretroviral treatment in the
public sector to the United States government's program to fund access to
antiretroviral ...