Brussels, 16/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - By adopting a resolution on AIDS, the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly urges EU Member States and the European Commission to grant, both politically and financially, a higher degree of priority to combating malaria and the HIV/AIDS virus. It considers that EU funds must serve to improve first aid care, public education, research and systematic tracking, to combat HIV/AIDS, it being understood that auxiliary medical staff must receive specific training. It calls on all the religious, cultural and political authorities to cooperate fully in implementing prevention programmes, and on the European Commission and EU Member States to help developing countries to finance the fight against AIDS, as well as malaria and tuberculosis. The Assembly also insists on a drastic reduction in the price of medicines to guarantee access to the poorest populations.
At a hearing during the session, Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, placed emphasis on AIDS's very own characteristics which require a long-term approach, for both the diseases and its treatment, which in turn requires access to care and medicines at affordable prices. The European Union has demonstrated its political will: all countries must provide for multi-sectoral budget headings to combat this epidemic. The representative of the British laboratory GlaxoWellcome, James Cochrane announced the forthcoming adoption of a joint declaration by 50 pharmaceutical companies that manufacture anti-retro-virals and five large United Nations agencies, including UNICEF, the World Bank and the WHO. This declaration is aimed, notably, at improving access to effective treatment and strengthen cooperation between governments, industry and civil society. He recalled that his company already proposed preferential prices on four of its anti-viral products to enable poor countries to include them in their treatment. Presenting her experience on the ground in Senegal, the representative of the "Pole d'excellence pharmacienne" of Senegal, Fatim Louisa Dia, highlighted the role of women and their place in society. She also placed emphasis on the need to improve access to means of prevention, to cut the price of medicines and decentralize the detection centres.
Commissioner Poul Nielson recalled that the Commission had committed over 82 billion euro between 1990 and 1999 in support of the fight against AIDS. Having welcomed the efforts of the pharmaceutical industry that had undertaken to reduce the cost of medicines, he said that sight should not be lost of the threat AIDS weighed on development and that world effort was therefore essential.