Canada on Thursday notified the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that it had authorised a company to manufacture a generic version of a patented AIDS drug for export, the first such project to be attempted under trade provisions agreed in 2003.

The triple combination AIDS therapy drug, TriAvir, can now be made and exported to Rwanda, which is unable to manufacture the medicine itself.

Rwanda had notified the WTO back in July that it would be buying 260,000 packs of TriAvir - a fixed-dose combination product of Zidovudine, Lamivudine and Nevirapine - over two years.

The drug is to be made in Canada by Apotex Inc. and is called ApoTriavir by the manufacturer.

"Canada's notification completes the circle," said the WTO in a release Friday.

Both notifications were required for the medicine to be exported to Rwanda under an important agreement, referred to as the 'Paragraph 6 System', among WTO members on August 30, 2003.

Paragraph 6, which gives effect to the 2001 Doha Declaration on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and Public Health, allows countries with public-health problems to import cheaper generics made under compulsory licensing elsewhere when they are unable to manufacture the medicines themselves.

Apotex must publish, before delivery of the drugs, details on the quantities and the distinguishing features of the product manufactured under the system.

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