World Health Organization

The contemporary global pharmaceuticals market has been developing at an incredible pace. As reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) it is worth $300 billion a year and this figure is expected to increase by $100 billion within the next three years. It goes without saying that this market is highly profitable and developed. Such ambitious data can be seen instrumental in the world healthcare improvement. However, the reality is far from the desirable one. Impairment to public health, counterfeit drugs which people use to combat malaria and tuberculosis are the cause of up to 700,000 deaths in Africa annually. Ebola spread has become a threatening surprise for the world pharmaceutical community. All the States are well aware of the massive socioeconomic disruption a pandemic can cause in case it breaks out. And instead of being one step ahead and developing the health service in undeveloped countries where the diseases originate, the world is, unfortunately, just waiting for the next big virus to strike. During the WHO HNMUN conference the delegation of Guinea-Bissau expresses its hope to attract public attention to the urgent issues of counterfeit drugs production and spreading, the possibility of reviewing the existing regulation of pharmaceutical trade and enforcing investigations on diseases specific for Africa in terms of developing new remedies and creating the fundamental health service on the basis of effective collaboration of all the Member States.

The interest of businessmen is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public" - is the quote from Adam Smith's "An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations". Current standards and regulations of pharmaceutical trade are stated in the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) which enables high economic profit for corporate powers. However, the patent system doesn't procure a sustainable profit for the companies which develop new drugs as the time for experiments and trials takes up to 80% of the company 20 years of limited rights for a certain drug protected by the patent. The problem is that large pharmaceutical companies which protect their innovative products with patents are put under the pressure of time and are forced to retain high prices on medicines for a stable ROI (return of investment). This system brings about such deplorable consequences as impertinent prices for the end-users and containment of new varieties of necessary drugs development. Therefore, the problem of counterfeit drugs arises. A 2009 United Nations report found sales of 45 million fake anti-malarial medicines resulted in revenues for their providers of $438 million, which is more than the GDP of Guinea-Bissau. African countries are extremely interested in finding solutions to this problem as counterfeit drugs reduce tax revenue, deter innovation and growth, discourage foreign investment, and require significant resources to combat them. Economic analyses by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicate that foreign direct investment from Germany, Japan and the USA is relatively higher in economies with lower rates of counterfeiting and that multinationals do not invest in countries where they are likely to have their products copied. Nevertheless, undeveloped countries need being sponsored and supported. Foreign aid can help if it encourages a basic health service. For instance, Jim Yong Kim, a doctor who now runs the World Bank, has said that "Ebola would have been contained if it broke out in Rwanda because it used donor money to build a proper health system after its genocide". Improvement of the African health system can be instrumental in achieving world sustainable life and translating Africa into poverty reduction.

In order to achieve these aims our delegation suggests, firstly, enabling the active collaboration of the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization to draft a new framework for trade and patents which will be based on the idea of monitoring of the compliance of medicines production by the governments along with permanent quality assurance of the final products. Guinea-Bissau also suggests enlarging the patent duration for the pharmaceutical companies up to 10 years from the day of product launch onto the market. Governments should encourage companies to develop new drugs and, at the same time, to make prices lower for the common consumers. In this case it will become easier to spill over genuine essential drugs of high quality. Furthermore, our delegation calls upon creating sources and national agencies similar to the American CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) in order to ensure health security of all the nations, including the developing and the undeveloped ones. Our delegation supposes these agencies to work on healthcare awareness issues and liaise with the WHO. In case it is not possible to create an online source which would be helpful for the population (e.g. in countries where the majority of population doesn't have an Internet access) these agencies are supposed to work out special programs of free lectures or spreading the information via printed sources aimed at ensuring an aware society. This system can contribute to reducing the number of purchased fake drugs and can also ensure that there are no problems with overdosing or improper utilization of remedies. The delegation of Guinea-Bissau is looking forward to participating in the HNMUN conference and expresses its hope for an effective collaboration of all the delegates on the crucial pharmaceutical industry issue.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 1206