A week after the WIPO session, Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said that “Brazil should never break medicine patents,” a statement that ignores the Brazil’s economic position in the world and the it condition as buyer of medicines, since Brazil has a universal public health system.

Faced with a projected $1 billion budget deficit and the uncertain replenishment of the Global Fund, UNAIDS recently released their 2019 Global AIDS Update, Communities at the Centre, and admitted to a sobering reality – the UNAIDS 90-90-90 fast-track strategy will likely fail, and the end of the AIDS epidemic is not quite as near as many had hoped.

After 20 years of ongoing negotiations, the European Union and Mercosur have come to agree on an unfortunate Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that threatens the overall social, environmental and economic well-being of all Mercosur countries. Bolstering the privatization movement in Brazil, the FTA advances the agriculture lobbyists’ agenda of stifling national/regional development by encouraging the de-industrialization of Mercosur.

Failure to provide essential data or to serve especially vulnerable groups will result in deep cuts in US anti-Aids funding for Kenya and Tanzania, a global development NGO said on Wednesday.