Ugandan Counterfeiting Bill Causes HAI to Voice Drug-Accessibility Concerns

Access to Affordable Medicines Under Threat in Uganda

The Ugandan government is considering an anti-counterfeiting bill which healthcare stakeholders feel will impede access to cheap and affordable generic alternatives. The Counterfeit Goods Bill that has been tabled by the Ugandan trade ministry defines "counterfeiting" as any good produced either domestically or abroad which is an imitation so as to be "substantially similar to the protected goods without the authority of the intellectual property right owner subsisting in the country or elsewhere", reports the Inter Press Service news agency. The bill will empower customs officers to seize suspected counterfeit goods. According to Gagawala Wambuzi, the country's trade minister, the government considers passing this bill into law a priority.

The bill itself has raised the concerns of several healthcare activists and generic firms. According to Patrick Mubangizi, the co-ordinator of Health Action International (HAI) Africa, the bill's definition of counterfeits deviates from the World Healthcare Organization (WHO)'s standard. According to Mubangizi, the WHO definition of counterfeit medicines refers to "a medicine which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source... Counterfeiting is applicable to both branded and generic products, and counterfeit products may include products with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient active ingredients, or with fake packaging", he added. HAI is an influential non-profit organisation that represents the interests of consumers in relation to drug policy internationally. Other activist organisations that have expressed similar concerns include HEPS-Uganda—a consumer health organisation advocating health rights and responsibilities.

Meanwhile, local manufacturing firms such as Quality Chemicals are also concerned because the bill classifies their entire drug portfolio as counterfeit.

Outlook and Implications

Uganda has been considering a counterfeit goods bill since mid-2009, particularly to combat the increasing trade in fake and sub-standard medicines in the country. A pharmacy raid in 2008 revealed that 95% of all pharmacies in the country sold some amount of counterfeit drugs, with President Yoweri Museveni at that time directing the trade ministry to come up with strict guidelines against counterfeiting (see Uganda: 8 October 2008: Government Operations Reveal Counterfeit Drugs in 95% of Pharmacies Raided in Uganda and Uganda: 9 March 2009: Uganda Follows Kenya's Example and Considers Anti-Counterfeiting Bill).

Uganda is following the example of neighbour Kenya, which came up with a similar bill in late 2008. The latter's bill was also heavily criticised by the pharma industry and is yet to be passed. While looking to improve the quality of goods sold in their respective countries, one of the biggest shortfalls of both bills is they fail to recognise that approval of an intellectual property rights owner is not always required for certain products; this is particularly relevant for the pharma industry. A case in point—Uganda is classified as a least developed country by the WHO, which means that it does not need to adhere to the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules for medicines until 2016, thereby allowing the industry to develop and guaranteeing essential drug access. However, the above bill hampers this, particularly considering that the country relies heavily on generic drug imports (90% reliance), and it is unlikely, therefore, to be passed in its current form.