Access to health products

Definition

Access to health prod­ucts is a human right, intrin­si­cally linked with the right to health. Under the right to health frame­work, health prod­ucts must be avail­able, acces­si­ble, accept­able, and of good qual­ity. This right cov­ers small mol­e­cule drugs, bio­log­ics, vac­cines, diag­nos­tics, and other types of health tools such as gene- and cell-ther­a­pies. While some prece­dents men­tion access to “essen­tial med­i­cines,” this right includes health prod­ucts beyond those for­mally rec­og­nized in the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) list of essen­tial med­i­cines. It also cov­ers access across dis­eases, includ­ing HIV, malaria, tuber­cu­lo­sis, other infec­tious dis­eases, and non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases. The right to access cov­ers prod­ucts indi­cated for pre­ven­tive and pro­phy­laxis health­care. Access to health prod­ucts must be guar­an­teed dur­ing and also in the absence of emer­gen­cies.

Access to HIV treat­ments and other health prod­ucts con­tin­ues to be dis­turbingly uneven in many places, with poorer health out­comes for women and girls, chil­dren, minori­ties, indige­nous pop­u­la­tions, per­sons liv­ing in poverty, queer peo­ple, per­sons with dis­abil­ity, migrants, state­less per­sons, and oth­ers expe­ri­enc­ing mar­gin­al­iza­tion. Improv­ing access to health prod­ucts could save mil­lions of lives every year. Intel­lec­tual prop­erty is often rec­og­nized as a crit­i­cal legal bar­rier imped­ing the generic man­u­fac­ture of health prod­ucts, lead­ing to lack of access and exces­sive pric­ing.

The Doha Dec­la­ra­tion on the TRIPS Agree­ment and Pub­lic Health and sev­eral other sub­se­quent prece­dents have rec­og­nized that the TRIPS agree­ment should be inter­preted and imple­mented in a man­ner sup­port­ive of the right to pro­tect pub­lic health, in par­tic­u­lar to pro­mote access to health prod­ucts for all. Many of the prece­dents reflected under the term access to health prod­ucts reaf­firm the right to pro­tect pub­lic health over intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights, includ­ing by mak­ing full use of the flex­i­bil­i­ties under the TRIPS agree­ment and other inter­na­tional com­mit­ments. Nev­er­the­less, these recog­ni­tions should only be con­sid­ered as a base­line and not a ceil­ing.

Other pol­icy inter­ven­tions required under a right to health frame­work to ensure access to health prod­ucts include facil­i­tat­ing tech­nol­ogy trans­fer, enhanc­ing local and regional man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties, ring fenc­ing domes­tic resource allo­ca­tion, and explor­ing and imple­ment­ing alter­na­tive incen­tives for encour­ag­ing research and devel­op­ment. An increas­ing num­ber of prece­dents are rec­og­niz­ing the need for these pol­icy inter­ven­tions to pro­tect the right to health, and they are reflected in this Lan­guage Com­pendium under the access to health prod­ucts term and also under alter­na­tive R&D mod­els, local and regional man­u­fac­ture, and tech­nol­ogy trans­fer.

Precedents

2022 Resolution on industrial development cooperation

2022 Resolution on elevating pandemic prevention, preparedness and response to the highest level of political leadership

2022 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on access to medicines, vaccines and other health products

2022 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

2022 WTO Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement

2021 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to COVID-19

2021 Resolution on science, technology and innovation for sustainable development

2021 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on the human rights of migrants

2021 Resolution on ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

2021 WHA Resolution on Strengthening Local Production to Improve Access

2021 Political declaration on equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines

2021 UNESC Resolution on UNAIDS

2021 Political declaration on HIV and AIDS

2021 CSW Report on women and HIV/AIDS

2021 HRC resolution on human rights in the context of HIV and AIDS

2020 Resolution on international cooperation to ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to face COVID-19

2020 Resolution on consolidating gains and accelerating efforts to control and eliminate malaria in developing countries, particularly in Africa, by 2030

2020 Resolution on comprehensive and coordinated response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

2020 Resolution on industrial development cooperation

2020 Resolution on global health and foreign policy: strengthening health system resilience through affordable health care for all

2019 Resolution on science, technology and innovation for sustainable development

2019 WHA Resolution on improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health products

2019 HRC Resolution on access to medicines and vaccines

2019 Political declaration of the HLM on UHC

2019 UNESC Resolution on UNAIDS

2019 WHA Resolution on antimicrobial resistance

2018 Political declaration of the HLM on the fight against TB

2018 Political declaration of the third HLM on NCDs

2018 HRC Resolution on human rights in the context of HIV and AIDS

2017 Resolution on international cooperation to address and counter the world drug problem

2016 Resolution on Women, the Girl Child and HIV and AIDS

2014 Resolution on efforts to control and eliminate malaria by 2015

2009 ECOSOC Resolution on UNAIDS

2007 WHA Resolution on tuberculosis control: progress and long-term planning

2007 WHA Resolution on progress in the rational use of medicines

2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS

2005 Resolution on the World Summit outcome

2003 WHA on global health-sector strategy for HIV/AIDS

2000 WHA on HIV/AIDS: confronting the epidemic

Expert precedents

2021 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to health

2016 General Comment No.22 on the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health

2009 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to health

Evidence

2021 WHO Consolidated Guidelines on HIV Prevention, Testing, Treatment, Service Delivery and Monitoring