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Positive Malaysian Treatment Access & Advocacy Group (MTAAG+)

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
Joined March 2019

Doing basic research for HIV & Hepatitis C medicine, training for the communities and campaign access to public medicines.

Presence in: Malaysia
Focus: Health

MTAAG+ is collaborating closely with Third World Network (TWN), a
Malaysian-based international organization that has long experience
and expertise in IP and public health. TWN’s office in Beijing is
actively involved with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to strengthen links among PLHIV groups and NGOs in developing countries for
advocating the use of TRIPS flexibilities in China to obtain large scale
generic production. Successful implementation of the national
program will strengthen MTAAG+ in this important effort.
The priorities for MTAAG+ are the national implementation of TRIPS
flexibilities in law and practice, and the prevention of IP provisions in
bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements that are against public
health, in particular access to affordable medicines.
A landmark achievement in 2006 was that bilateral FTA negotiations
between Malaysia and the US were halted when Malaysia’s 50 red
lines which were raised by CSOs were not resolved – one of the
strongest red lines related to the IP chapter that would have removed
or restricted crucial TRIPS flexibilities for public health purposes.
MTAAG+ strongly represented the PLHIV community and was one of
the leading protest voices in the intense national campaign. That
experience and achievement are valuable with the Trans Pacific
Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that has become a major struggle in
the last 3 years. The Malaysia-EU FTA is also of serious concern
though it is temporarily slowed down with attention of the government
on the TPPA. As the only developing country that actually had an
advanced stage of bilateral negotiations with the US abandoned, it is
very urgent that the ongoing anti-TPPA activism is further
strengthened.