NEW DELHI: Public health activists fear that India, Brazil and other developing countries could be caving in to US pressure going by the latest version of the UN’s draft political declaration on tuberculosis (TB). The declaration to be adopted by heads of state at a high-level meeting in New York in September this year will set the direction for the global fight against TB, including access to TB medicines.The G-77 group of countries, which includes India, has been under tremendous pressure to drop all references to the flexibilities and safeguards available within trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS). These are meant to protect a country’s right to take policy measures required to ensure access to affordable medicines for its citizens. They, for instance, allow governments to issue compulsory licenses to override patents in the interest of public health, so that they can allow generic versions to be produced or imported.Alarmed by reports of US pressure on G-77, public health activists have urged India not to give in to such pressure. Ashwani Mahajan of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch tweeted tagging external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj , appealing to her not to cave in to US pressure tactics as “TRIPS flexibilities are key to protecting public health”. “India should come forward to protect the interests of developing countries as it has always done. I have messaged the health ministry and PMO also,” said Mahajan.What has alarmed these activists is the change in the draft declaration being negotiated by UN member countries. The draft as it stood on July 20 had dropped all references to the WTO’s Doha declaration that enshrined public health flexibilities and safeguards in the TRIPS agreement. This was a clear shift from the July 10 draft. Instead, the new draft has introduced a phrase about how “intellectual property rights are an important incentive in the development of new health products”.“How is it possible that global leaders will gather for the first time to decide how to tackle the world’s most deadly infectious killer disease, and yet some countries backed by their big pharma lobbies are pushing to remove any mention of the need for vital medicines to be affordable?” asked Sharonann Lynch, HIV and TB Advisor for MSF’s Access Campaign. “Drug-resistant-TB is a public health emergency, so clearly the world is going to need to kick the response to this disease into high gear. Blocking more affordable generic versions of safer oral medicines needed to scale up treatments for people with drug resistant TB will not be the way to do it.”"The G-77 will be meeting to review the draft later this evening, India time."“We’re appealing to all countries, including those in the Group of 77, and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, that have a high burden of TB, to urgently stand up right now against bullying that aims to keep medicines out of the hands of your people who need treatment,” said Leena Menghaney, South Asia Head for MSF’s Access Campaign. “This upcoming TB Summit is such an important opportunity to reaffirm countries’ rights to make medicines affordable for their people – don’t waste this moment.”