An 'extract' of the editorial is as below.
The World Health Organization (WHO)
has demonstrated exemplary foresight in highlighting that access to biomedical
journals is a critical issue in developing countries and one of the many
obstacles to improving health. In the year 2002, WHO initiated a unique program,
HINARI, with the support of several major publishers. HINARI is presently
providing open access to over 3,750 journal titles to institutions in 113
developing countries. Institutions in countries with GNI per capita (World Bank
figures, 2006) below $1,000 are eligible for free access and those in countries
with GNI per capita between $1,000 and $3,000 can gain access by paying a very
reasonable fee of $1,000 per year / institution. However, clinicians and
researchers in some very populous developing countries like India have been
greatly disappointed that they are not considered eligible for HINARI. The GNI
per capita as per the World Bank 2006 figures for some of the countries that
have been excluded by HINARI, range from $770 for Pakistan, $820 for India,
$1420 for Indonesia and $2010 for China. The HINARI website acknowledges that
some developing countries with per capita GNP of less than US$3,000 have been
denied open access through HINARI as 'the publishers participating in HINARI
have not, for the time being, extended their offer to countries where they have
significant levels of existing subscriptions and, in some cases, local sales
staff.' It is unfortunate that business interests of western publishers has
taken away the gloss from HINARI by denying open access to clinicians catering
to the health needs of half of the world population. While the long list of 113
countries covered under HINARI looks very impressive, most of these are very
small countries, with the combined population of countries in Band 1 being 1.2
billion; and in Band 2 as 0.3 billion. In contrast, the total population of
China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, the 4 most populous countries with a per
capita GNI of less than $3000 but excluded from HINARI is 3 billion.