Brussels, 23/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - On the occasion of the meeting of Board members of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (Brussels, 22-24 November), the official opening of which is scheduled for 15 December, a panel of humanitarian NGOs and associations for AIDS sufferers from 10 countries from both North and South gathered in Brussels to denounce the direction of the Fund. They called for it to finance not only the prevention of transmissible diseases but also and above all access to treatment for AIDS sufferers in poor countries. During a press conference organised at the European Parliament at the initiative of Didier-Claude Rod (Greens, France), these representatives of the civil society said they did not understand why, after the victory in Doha, where the WTO recognised the primacy of the right to treatment over economic stakes, the Fund should be proposing to focus on the least expensive actions and has not taken any commitment in favour of providing medicines against AIDs, thus simply sentencing 30 million people with HIV to death as they do not have access to treatment. Their demands took the form of an appeal to the Union, and mainly to the European Commission, for the promotion of: 1) a firm commitment by rich countries in favour of access by people infected to treatment; 2) establishment of a fast track procedure allowing funds to be made available for emergencies to immediately provide medicines based on health programmes that have already had good results in developing countries; 3) the representation of NGOs on the Board of the Fund and their right to be eligible to such financing.
Jeanne Gapiya, from the ANSS Association in Burundi, who has AIDS but who has had access to treatment, said she had lived with the illness for fifteen years. Demolishing the argument whereby the poor countries have neither the medical know-how nor the infrastructures necessary for using the treatment correctly, she stressed that many doctors are trained in Europe and that the infrastructures are being set in place. With the help of NGOs and the support of MSF (Médecins sans frontières), which have negotiated with the laboratories of generic medicines, her country, although poor and at war, has managed to set in place funds of $50,000 per year, to buy the antiretro virus. "People have taken medicines", she said. A multi-drug therapy will soon be available at the cost of FF 2000 per month per person which "remains very expensive for the average Burundi citizens". Given the number of lives to be saved, access to financing from the Global Fund should, she said, not be conditional. "One must differentiate between what is political and what is social", she declared.
Atiqa Chajri, from the ALCS (Association de Lutte contre le sida, Morocco) noted the "edifying experience" of her country, where action programmes exist such as the programme of therapeutic education which has been validated at international level and is to be modelled on. "This contradicts those who oppose access by poor countries to tri-therapy. We have shown that it is possible. We have skills. The rate of observance of treatment is excellent even among the illiterate. The programmes are a success in the large towns. We need to provide doctors in the provinces to create reference groups", she said. Recalling that the Global Fund "is not a development fund but an emergency fund", she added: "We demand urgent responses for people who are in need of treatment". She expressed concern about the fact that access to the Fund is reserved to countries with a 4% rate of the disease and asked, ironically, whether a country like hers, with a prevalence rate below 1%, should give up prevention to allow those already ill to have access to treatment. Saying that only concerted projects between governments and NGOs can succeed, she urged for representation of NGOs on the Board of the Fund.
Joseph Essombo, doctor in medicine at the Association Renaissance Santé Bouaké in Côte d'Ivoire, said he was pleased that, "thanks to Kofi Annan", the attention of the international community has been drawn to a "problem that has been urgent since 1988". Speaking of the "terrible choice facing us: that of allowing sick people to die", he added: "there is no justification not to do anything as effective ways to improve the comfort of sick persons do exist". Concerned about Europe's idea that the Global Fund for AIDS is a response to a development problem, he appealed for a response to the urgent problem of AIDS and malaria, and denounced the separation made between prevention and cure. "Coupling the two would be the best answer", he said.
Zackie Achmatu, from the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, felt that refusing access to treatment for AIDS sufferers in the poor countries is quite simply tantamount to condemning them to death because of a "lack of political will". He appealed to the European Commission to no longer tolerate the fact that "people are dying in our countries when those who are ill in the northern countries are being treated".
Evan Ruderman, of the Health GAP Coalition in the United States, considered that the "privilege of treatment granted to some is at the expense of human rights". In her view, too, prevention and cure cannot be separated as "treatment is also prevention". What is needed is "a global vision for the provision of medicines at the most affordable price", she declared.