Abuja, 28/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - By adopting two resolutions on AIDS, the joint APC-EU Assembly voted for the creation of a international therapeutic solidarity fund. It called on the pharmaceutical industry and all the heads of public health to confront their responsibilities with regard to the intensification of the research efforts to develop vaccines and the production of affordable drugs in developing countries. The joint Assembly underlined that while Pentamidine, which is a good value treatment for sleeping sickness, show effectiveness for the treatment of Aids related infections, the price of this drug has increased by 500% and due to this, it is no longer accessible in most developing countries. It judges as unacceptable that access to basic medication is more difficult in these countries. The pharmaceutical industry is invited to introduce, for new anti-infection medications, the same system of price differentiation that already enables them to sell certain vaccines more cheaply in developing countries when compared to the prices charged in the industrialised nations.
Through another resolution, the Assembly stated it fears over the continuing rise in the number of deaths caused by Paludism: more than one and a half million children die each year from Malaria in APC countries. The Commission is invited to strengthen the capacity of the EMVI and AMVTN programmes in view of accelerating the preparing the experimentation of anti-malaria vaccines.