WHO, WTO, WIPO Put Their Collective Mind To Antibiotic Resistance Calamity 25/10/2016 by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Resistance to antibiotics by bacteria has been steadily growing and is now considered as a major threat to global public health, with some catastrophic projections of millions of death and billions of dollars in economic impact. The World Trade Organization, World Health Organization and World Intellectual Property Organization today are holding a joint technical symposium on antimicrobial resistance, and how to encourage innovation, appropriate use of antibiotics, and wide access to treatments and diagnostics. The 6th WIPO, WHO, and WTO joint technical symposium seeks to achieve better understanding of the global challenge of antibiotic resistance and examine possible ways forward. The WTO posted a short video on its website about the “antibiotics apocalypse”. The meeting [pdf] includes three panels: fostering access and appropriate use, business models for antibiotics innovation, and trade policy in support of antimicrobial access and stewardship. Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General WIPO Director General Francis Gurry, opening the meeting being held at WIPO, said the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an example “par excellence” of the particular complexity arising from unforeseen consequences. “We face a problem which cuts across many disciplines and which has consequences in so many areas,” he said. “Innovation certainly is part of the solution,” Gurry said, adding “innovation in the most broad sense,” including organisation models and governance models. “We certainly face a formidable opponent in the battle for innovation,” he said, as “microbes are extremely good at innovation themselves.” One of the questions that needs to be asked is why the private market incentive system for innovation for antibiotics has failed to produce good results in the course of the last several decades, he said. Gurry mentioned the United Kingdom Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (the O’Neill report – IPW, Public Health, 8 June 2016) and the suggestions for solution it provided, and in particular market entry incentives. Intellectual property as a key component in the innovation system must also be part of the solution to this extremely complex problem, he said. WTO Not in the Way, says DG World Trade Organization Director General Roberto Azevêdo World Trade Organization Director General Roberto Azevêdo said the response to AMR cannot be isolated and individual, but must rely on a wide range of empirical data and sound policy analysis, and must be global. Modern antibiotics have had a huge impact on public heath, and many lives have been saved thanks to innovation and drug discovery in this field, he said. However, misuse of antibiotics can lead to the evolution of new, more resistant pathogens, which can evolve more rapidly than the science’s capacity to respond, he said. Although this is a common threat, it plays out in very different ways across the globe, he said. Some countries are more exposed than others, and in many countries people lack appropriate access to antibiotics. “Access even to affordable generics remains limited in many places,” he said. “We must ensure that antibiotics reach those in need,” he said. There is also a need to make sure antibiotics are used rationally, and that innovation systems support the development of new antibiotics, he added. Azevêdo mentioned the adoption at the WHO of the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, as well as the United Nations’ High Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance held in New York last month to underline the growing awareness of the subject. The UN meeting resulted in a political declaration on AMR (IPW, United Nations, 22 September 2016). Today’s trilateral meeting was conceived and planned as a practical follow-up to that high-level meeting, he said. Azevêdo said the WTO has an important role to play in helping face the challenges of AMR, in two main ways. The first is by supporting better access to necessary medicines, as the bulk of the world’s population depends on international trade for access to current and new generations of antibiotics. Last year, he said, some 24,000 tonnes of antibiotics were imported globally. Eliminating trade barriers can help to ensure that more people have access to affordable medicines. He mentioned the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement agreed on in 2013, which once implemented is expected to tackle cumbersome border procedures. The second is by supporting good practices for antibiotics rules, he said. Governments may set rules to encourage the responsible use of antibiotics in order to address AMR, and “of course, such rules can have an impact on trade in these drugs,” he said. However, he said, it is well established in trade law that governments have the right to regulate, and they can regulate at whatever level of security they need to do. WTO agreements clearly allow WTO members to take necessary measures to protect health and the environment, even if it somehow restricts the trade of certain products, he said. Despite this flexibility provided to governments, WTO agreements encourage members to base those restrictive measures on international standards, guidelines, and recommendations, said the director general. “In this way WTO trade law can help support the implementation of international standards and good practices for appropriate use of antibiotics,” he said. “It is clear that we need to work together to meet the challenges of antimicrobial resistance,” Azevêdo said, adding that “the rules that govern global trade were designed with appropriate flexibilities so that we can respond to precisely this sort of situation. “I am clear that the WTO should not stand in the way of the response to this issue, rather we must do everything we can to facilitate it,” he concluded. WHO Says Awareness Growing, Need Collaborative Effort Keiji Fukuda, Special Representative for Antimicrobial Resistance at WHO Keiji Fukuda, the outgoing Special Representative for Antimicrobial Resistance, representing WHO Director General Margaret Chan (who is usually present at the trilateral meetings), said there is growing awareness that AMR is a fundamental social threat, something akin to climate change. Individual countries and organisations are becoming much better acquainted with the magnitude and consequences of this issue, he said. AMR might lead to a massive increase in the number of deaths and a threat to the practice of modern medicines. He also mentioned the WHO Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance and said it is a blueprint for what needs to be done and countries now have to take it and act upon it. The fight against AMR needs a collaborative effort, he said, and cross-sectional issues need to be addressed, in particular financing. There is also a need to make sure there is a sustainable approach to developing new technologies, new treatments and diagnostic tools, and to find ways to continue developing those at a pace that remains ahead of resistance, said Fukuda. He also underlined the importance of access and affordability to those new treatments and diagnostic tools. Fukuda said that approximately 15 percent of child deaths (under 5 years old) were due in 2015 to pneumonia, and many of those deaths could have been averted if children had had access to antibiotics. Image Credits: Catherine Saez Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related Catherine Saez may be reached at csaez@ip-watch.ch."WHO, WTO, WIPO Put Their Collective Mind To Antibiotic Resistance Calamity" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.