HEALTH: NGOs Chastise UN on AIDS and Access to Drugs

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 18 2001 (IPS) - Civil society groups spoke out at the World Health Assembly against the policies the United Nations and its specialised agencies have spelled out for access to low-cost medications and the fight against HIV/AIDS, saying they do not go far enough.

An alliance of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the annual meeting of World Health Organisation (WHO) member nations – underway here through May 22 – said the Global Aids and Health Fund, proposed by the UN, risks “serving the interests of the pharmaceutical industry” instead of attending to the needs of the world’s poor countries.

The groups involved in the alliance – Health Action International, Health Gap Coalition, Act Up-Paris and Oxfam UK – assert that “the Fund must function with transparency at all levels.”

In this Fund, “representation from commercial interests in any governing or advisory capacity must be forbidden,” stated the NGOs.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the Global Aids and Health Fund would serve as a mechanism for “mobilising some extra money” to implement prevention measures and provide health services for HIV/AIDS patients in poorer countries, an endeavour estimated to require 7.0 to 10.0 billion dollars annually.

Annan assured the health ministers gathered for the World Health Assembly that an independent council would govern the Fund with transparency and responsibility.

The financial resources would be largely be used for confronting the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but would also target other infectious diseases that are devastating the populations of developing countries, such as tuberculosis and malaria.

But even before the Fund has gotten off the ground, it has been compromised by the decision of the United States government, under President George W. Bush, to donate “the small sum of 200 million dollars,” pointed out Gaelle Krikorian, of Act Up-Paris.

According to the calculations of the US-based Health Gap Coalition, the contribution corresponding to Washington for the Fund would be 2.0 billion dollars.

The other members of the Group of Seven (G-7) wealthy nations and Russia would have to put up 6.0 billion dollars, while the rest of the budget is to come from donations made by foundations and other private sectors.

The NGOs demanded that the UN lead efforts to obtain sufficient resources to meet the Fund’s annual budget.

Donors must make pledges to cover a large portion of the 10- billion-dollar budget before June 25, when the special session of the UN General Assembly dedicated to the HIV/AIDS is scheduled to begin, say the civil society groups of the alliance.

The NGOs’ pressure on the health ministers also focused on the matter of ensuring that poor countries have access to essential drugs at low prices.

The Paris-based Doctors without Borders organisation demanded that the ministers at the Assembly provide a mandate for the World Health Organisation, which “can and should be doing much more.”

Doctors without Borders, winner of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, exhorted the multilateral institution to defend global health interests in negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The council for the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the division of the WTO that handles regulations on pharmaceutical patents, is slated to meet June 18-22.

The group of African countries represented at the WTO convinced the TRIPS council to set aside an entire day of next month’s sessions for debate on how intellectual property rules affect access to medications.

The matter of access to drugs at economical prices reached a high point in April when South Africa convinced a group of 39 pharmaceutical transnationals to withdraw a lawsuit against the country’s legislation that regulates patent ownership to favour lower-prices for medicines.

WHO Director General, Gro Harlem Brundtland, said in comments before the World Health Assembly that there is a widespread feeling of relief following the resolution of that controversial legal conflict, “one that affects the lives and futures of many people.”

Doctors without Borders appealed to Brundtland to “more energetically” defend the rights of WTO and WHO member states to incorporate national legislative measures that protect the access of the population’s poorest and most vulnerable to essential drugs.