A court case which could allow cheaper drugs for millions of AIDS sufferers in South Africa was adjourned yesterday for five weeks to allow drug companies time to defend their case against a law that would threaten patent rights.
The trial, which began on Monday, will decide whether South Africa can import cut-price versions of generic treatments rather than the more expensive brand drugs.
Developing countries and activists argue that big pharmaceutical companies are blocking the treatment of millions of people around the world by refusing to allow cheap copies of their patented products to be manufactured in poor countries.
South Africa has the fastest rate of HIV infection in the world and about 10 per cent of the adult population, or 4.2 million people, are HIV positive, according to figures from the specialised United Nations body, UNAIDS.
Yesterday, Judge Bernard Ngoepe adjourned the case until April 18th to allow 39 drug companies more time to respond to a request by a local AIDS group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), to examine how the law would affect the drive for cheaper medicine.
The companies want the court to scrap sections of South Africa's Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act of 1997, which triggered a legal battle and was never implemented.
"We have reached the point sadly where the matter has to be postponed," Judge Ngoepe said.
Before the trial opened, President Thabo Mbeki said the question of cheaper medicine for the poor was "central" to his government's policies.
AIDS advocates have urged the government to pursue the provision in the World Trade Organisation's TRIPS agreement on intellectual property, which stipulates that governments may, under certain conditions, including a national emergency, resort to compulsory licensing. This would allow the government to authorise non-patent holders to produce patented drugs at cheaper prices, as long as the awarding of the licences was transparent.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation said yesterday it was taking extraordinary action to support South Africa's legal battle to import and produce cheap generic anti-AIDS drugs.
"Basically WHO supports the South African court case . . . we have been working on supplying legal counsel to the South African government," said the WHO spokesman, Mr Gregory Hartl.