Oxfam – People’s Medicines Alliance Statements at INB12

Statement on resumed INB 12

Delivered by Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni, Policy Co-Lead of the People’s Medicines Alliance

Thank you

Oxfam appreciates the hard work of delegates and the bureau in developing this instrument to protect people everywhere from pandemics.

We value your commitment to engaging with relevant stakeholders. However, as the year draws to close, we hope to see that our interactions and statements are reflected in the document.

At this stage of negotiation, we feel that you are faced with a critical question on equity: do you want an agreement that seriously and practically protect the health and economy of everybody on the planet or you want to protect the financial health of pharmaceutical companies?

You would answer the question in the way you address the remaining key issues such as:

• On article 11 would you leave technology transfer to continue being under control of companies? Basically, continuing the current system that stopped the mRNA hub from producing COVID vaccine in time to vaccinate developing countries at the same time of people in the North.
• Again on article 11 would you continue tying govts hands from taking legal measures to loosen pharma grip on knowledge and knowhow via their tight grip on intellectual property?
• On article 12: would you leave sharing the benefit of sharing pathogens to the whim of pharmaceutical companies? Demanding that countries sharing the pathogens data immediately while condemning them to waiting for the good will of pharmaceutical companies does not make sense to 80% of the globe or even for the lucky 20% of the North when variants from the South hit them.

Moreover, if you really want to protect people, the agreement must clearly spell out serious commitments from all countries to financing public health through domestic funding, aid and debit relieve-all with transparency that enables public scrutiny everywhere.

Time for legally binding commitments to protect all people whoever they are wherever they are. Just one question: would we be allowed in the informal sessions?

Thank you

Statement on Articles: 4, 5, 9, 20

Thank you.

There is no doubt that countries need to implement prevention measures and strengthen surveillance as mentioned in Article 4. Countries also need to adopt and plan for One Health approach, not only for prevention of pandemics, but also to protect the health of animals and the environment in addition to human health.

However, the two articles list several obligations on developing countries with two fundamental gaps:

1. There is no concrete commitment to financing the planning and implementation of those prevention and One Health measures. Reference to financial and technical support is vague and not binding. Yet without such support, it is difficult for countries of the South to adopt the measures mentioned in the 2 articles. It is difficult for countries to prioritise financing measures like surveillance while they are struggling to address outbreaks and to pay their debt.
2. The articles commit countries to strengthen surveillance but donot refer to the potential benefit these countries would get from surveillance in terms of access to products for humans or animals. Clearly there is a strong link between these articles and articles 12 on PABS but this link is not acknowledged.

 

We hope that other articles later on emphasise concrete measures fortransparency and accountability to enable public scrutiny of financing, planning and implementation of the entire accord.

We totally support Wemos’s position on innovative financing. The term sounds positive and novel but in reality, the details of its nature revealmore burden on developing countries and less effectiveness and efficiency than public financing. Moreover, in most cases it is not open to public security.

On article 9 and 11, please consider the experience of the WHO backed mRNA hub. The mRNA technology was hugely funded by public money but relying on willingness/voluntary sharing of technology by pharmaceutical companies resulted in no technology transfer even now 4 years later.

Thank you

/Ends

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