Brussels, 29/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Commission is determined to redouble its efforts to fight HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries. To this end, it has just adopted a communication establishing the political framework of this reinforced fight against three transmissible poverty diseases. The objective of this new strategy remains the fight against poverty, and the fight against the three infectious diseases will continue to be backed up by the increasingly broad range of EU policies which have their part to play: trade, development, research, health and external relations.
For the first time, however, the Commission has announced a two-pronged attack, concentrating on: -human rights, to avoid worsening the marginalisation and stigmatisation of very high-risk groups; -the implications of these disease for human safety, being that they decimate communities and destroy social cohesion (which is most particularly the case with HIV/Aids); -the coherence of the answers to be found to these three diseases in all of the EU's external relations (beyond just development policy).
The Commission has also identified new fields of intervention. It is proposing to increase the sanitary capacities within national development programmes; enhancing the regulatory capacity of third countries including the their ability to approve clinical trials and grant market authorisations; promoting investment in the local production of pharmaceutical products in third countries: for example for insecticide-treated bed-nets or combination therapies for malaria; further reducing prices of pharmaceutical products by working further on the issues of tiered pricing, price transparency, and competition; and continuing work to support the research and development of new tools and interventions such as vaccines and microbicides.
The Commission is proposing a coherent response to the three diseases across all of its external relations, giving added impetus to its action plan adopted in 2001. The European Commission has allocated over EUR 1.1 billion to fight the three diseases from 2003 - 2006. European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Poul Nielson, stressed: “During the last five years this Commission has been busy attacking HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB from all possible perspectives be it development, trade, research or health. With the adoption of the new policy framework the Commission is well placed to remain at the forefront of the fight against these three killer diseases”.
Worldwide an estimated 6 million people die from HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB every year.