WHO backs use of compulsory licensing

By, Pennapa Hongthong, The Nation, May 25, 2007

The annual meeting of all 193 member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) ended yesterday in Geneva with a resolution to endorse the use of compulsory licensing to increase access to medicines.

The resolution came after a 10-hour heated debate between developed and developing countries. The resolution was welcomed by Thailand and Brazil as it was the first official WHO stance on the controversial issue since Thailand utilised the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) agreement on overriding intellectual property rights last November, followed by Brazil recently.

In its statement released yesterday, the WHO said its assembly resulted in commitments from its director-general to provide technical and policy support to countries to use compulsory licences to make existing medicines more accessible and to draw up a global strategy and plan of action on the issue.

"I am fully committed to this process and have noted your desire to move forward faster... We must make a tremendous effort. We know our incentive: the prevention of large numbers of needless deaths," said Margaret Chan, the WHO's director-general, in the statement.

A representative of Thailand's Public Health Ministry who attended the assembly said the resolution was very good news for Thailand.

"We have fought to the last minute to convince other countries to agree with us," said the health official, who asked not to be named.

He said Thailand and Brazil, the only two countries to issue compulsory licences to manufacture cheap generic versions of expensive drugs, played crucial roles in the debate to support the resolution, while the United States led the opposition. The US, he said, was the only country to voice its dissent on the resolution and was angered when its words were not heeded by other countries.

He said the Public Health Ministry would officially announce the good news to Thais today.

The WHO's resolution came just three days after Thailand failed to clarify the use of compulsory licensing to the US government. The US commerce secretary took an aggressive stance and acted like a representative of US drug firms in demanding the cancellation of compulsory licences when Thai Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla met him on Monday in Washington.

Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul, a campaigner from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium in Thailand, said the resolution was a great success for developing countries in their battle to get access to medicines.

"The fundamental problems of high drug prices caused by the reliance on patents for research and development on drugs should be explored as a next step," she said.

Kannikar claimed that the assembly also adopted a resolution to explore R&D incentive mechanisms and to address the link between R&D costs and the price of medicines, vaccines and diagnostic kits.

Besides agreements on public health, innovation and intellectual property rights, the WHO's member states also reached resolutions on pandemic influenza preparedness and access to vaccines and other benefits that would be shared among the members.

Chan, head of the WHO, said the sharing would flow from improved international cooperation and preparation.

The resolution requires the WHO to establish an international stockpile of vaccines for H5N1 bird-flu and other influenza viruses of pandemic potential and to formulate mechanisms and guidelines aimed at ensuring fair and equitable distribution of vaccines at affordable prices.

U.N. reaffirms commitment to goals for HIV prevention and treatment

By, The China Post, May 23, 2007

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believes progress is possible to halt and begin to reverse the spread of AIDS globally by 2015 _ despite a rising rate of infection that means 12,000 people are diagnosed with the HIV virus daily.

"Make no mistake: in some way or another, we all live with HIV. We are all affected by it. We all need to take responsibility for the response," he told a General Assembly session reviewing the U.N. response to the epidemic Monday.

Last year, U.N. member states renewed pledges and set a new global goal to have universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. One of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders at a summit in September 2000 calls for halting and starting to reverse the spread of HIV by 2015.

Monday's session was organized to review the goals' progress.

"In the course of a quarter of a century, HIV has infected 65 million people, and killed 25 million," Ban said. "Today, 40 million people are living with HIV. Almost half of them are women. More women _ including married women _ are living with HIV than ever before."

According to U.N. statistics, there were 2 million people receiving treatment in 2006, representing 28 percent of the estimated 7.1 million people in need, an increase of 700,000 from 2005.

But the report showed that the rate of infection continues to increase.

An estimated $18 billion (€13.4 billion) is needed in 2007 and $22 billion (€16.4 billion) in 2008 to achieve universal access to prevention and treatment programs in low- and middle-income countries, according to the United Nations.

Ban said ensuring access to treatment, prevention, care and support is "critical" to achieving the goal of halting and reversing the AIDS epidemic _ and this means tackling diseases associated with HIV especially tuberculosis, investing in vaccines and microbicides to prevent and treat the virus and ensuring full funding.

"It means mustering the political will to address the factors that drive the epidemic _ including gender inequality, stigma and discrimination," he said.

Ban stressed that fighting AIDS will remain a U.N. priority and that he will make every effort to mobilize funding.

"If we have learned one lesson beyond any other in the past 25 years, it is surely this: only when we work together with unity of purpose can we defeat AIDS _ unity among governments, the private sector and civil society," the secretary-general said.

General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa spoke not only of the growing number of women living with the disease, an estimated 17 million worldwide, but the devastating impact on their lives.

"Many women would rather not get the treatment they need to save their lives, or stop their children from contracting HIV/AIDS because they do not want, or do not know how to cope with the fear and stigma of HIV/AIDS," she said.

On Monday, the secretary-general appointed Elizabeth Mataka, the executive director of the Zambia National AIDS Network, as his special AIDS envoy for Africa. He also renewed appointments for Dr. Nafis Sadik as the U.N. AIDS envoy for Asia, Lars Kallings as the envoy for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Sir George Alleyne for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Source: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/latestnews/2007522/46307.htm

Tripling of Aids Spending Demanded

By, ActionAid UK, One world, May 18, 2007

* 18-19 May annual meeting of G8 finance ministers in Potsdam, Germany

G7 countries must immediately triple their annual HIV and Aids spend to the developing world, if they are to meet the historic Gleneagles commitment of prevention, treatment and care for all who need it by 2010, campaigners have warned.

The international anti-poverty agency ActionAid has written to the G7 finance ministers, who gather in Potsdam, Germany at the end of this week, urging them to fill the $8bn to $10bn annual funding gap that prevents a full-scale assault on the epidemic.

Although Aids is scheduled for discussion at June's G8 summit, it is not on the finance ministers' agenda this week. ActionAid is concerned that consequently pledges made at the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, will never become reality.

ActionAid campaigner Nick Corby said: "It is the job of finance ministers to unlock funds. Our research shows just what a huge gap there is between what is needed and what is being delivered.

"The G8 cannot move on Aids without the finance being in place, and that requires a comprehensive funding plan that is long term, sustainable and predictable."

Two years on from Gleneagles, and with less than three weeks to go before the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, three quarters of people who need treatment in low and middle income countries are not receiving it. Nearly 90 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women are still unable to get drugs that could prevent the virus being passed on to their child.

"Without proper funding, the world will not even make a dent in the appalling 8,000 Aids deaths a day and the 12,000 new HIV infections. Those statistics are a shocking indictment of the indifference of the world's richest countries to the suffering of millions," said the head of ActionAid's HIV and Aids campaign, Aditi Sharma.

The figures

On 2005 figures, the UK is the second largest governmental donor to HIV and Aids projects, yet its spending must increase by a third to deliver its fair share of the funds needed in 2007. Germany must increase its spending five-fold.

Canada needs to commit an extra US$134 million a year

France needs to commit an extra US$682 million a year

Germany needs to commit an extra US$895 million a year

Italy needs to commit an extra US$490 million a year

Japan needs to commit an extra US$1,947 million a year

The UK needs to commit an extra US$231 million a year

The US needs to commit an extra US$4,009 million a year

ENDS

Source: http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/149327/1/3319