ACCESS TO MEDICINES AND HUMAN RIGHTS – A CRITICAL REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE RELATED IP BARRIERS AND ITS OPERATION DURING COVID-19

Abstract - The Covid-19 pandemic, an international health emergency has brought back into focus the debate on access to medicines. Unhindered access to medicines is an essential prerequisite for achieving public health indicators. Even though India’s public spending of health is relatively low, access to cheap and effective medicines for a wide variety of needs is a hallmark of the Indian health system. India clinched the sobriquet ‘pharmacy of the world’, when pharmaceutical companies such as the Serum Institute of India, Biological E, Dr Reddy’s etc manufactured and supplied lifesaving drugs at comparatively trifling prices. A conducive intellectual property environment which barred product patents for medicines till 2005 spurred the growth of this manufacturing industry. The implementation of TRIPS obligations post-2005 and the current global health crisis has opened a cavernous need for the manufacture and supply of therapeutic and diagnostic equipment in large volumes. As the world turns to India, Brazil and South Africa to meet it needs, the countries are mooting a waiver of TRIPS protection on medicines and medical equipment.