Kampala, July 27 2010 - At the close of the African Union (AU) Heads of State Summit, health experts and activists from across Africa expressed grave concern that leaders are not delivering on fundamental commitments to expand investments in maternal and child health and other life saving health services, including treatment and prevention for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

All people have the right to access the medicines they need to be healthy. Public health groups, humanitarian and intergovernmental organizations, experts and academics that work on access to medicines, gathered at the University of California at Berkeley in the United States to analyze the serious threats that recent “intellectual property enforcement” initiatives pose to this right.

They made a Declaration to call upon policy makers in governments and international organizations to reject the cynical and dangerous efforts that have been made through this agenda to prioritize commercial interests over their right to health.

Download the Berkeley Declaration

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Kenyans fighting for the right to have access to cheaper generic HIV medicines have won global attention, with the government conceding that it made a mistake in pass-ing a law that could deny its people genu-ine drugs.
Last week, the two ministries of Health were reported in the Economic Times of India as having promised to redraft the offending clause in the Anti-Counterfeit Act, 2008, that threatens to outlaw gener-ic drugs as counterfeits.

Ministry officialsUnnamed ministry officials are said to have told the just ended annual World Health Organisation's assembly in Geneva that the anti-counterfeit law was pushed by the Ministry of Industry, which had no clue about the possible ramifications.This is the second victory for HIV
posi-tive Kenyans in as many months.