South Africa's Health C'tee Rejects MRSCA Bill Change

20 October 1997

Despite growing international pressure, the ruling Africa NationalCongress on South Africa's Portfolio Committee on Health has rejected all amendments proposed by opposition parties to the contentious Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Bill (Marketletters September 1 and 29), and has approved it unchanged. If passed by the National Assembly (as is now widely expected) the Bill will give the Minister of Health, Nkosazana Zuma, the legal authority to override patent rights in allowing parallel imports of cheaper medicinal products.

The approval follows shortly after the USA added its voice to the choir of protests against the Bill.

In a letter to Abe Nkomo, chairman of the Portfolio Committee on Health, US Ambassador James Joseph "strongly urged" the SA government to remove or alter a specific section [section 15(c)], "which seems to pose a great risk to universally accepted principles of patent protection." He also requested that the SA government "carefully consider" the implications of parallel imports of patented medicines law which would infringe on the intellectual property rights of a patent holder, "for even the best of reasons - especially if the power to undertake such action is vested in one person."

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