The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)| By Jean Serror Yomiuri Shimbun | June 4, 2003
When the Group of Eight leaders left Evian, they might have believed they had succeeded in convincing the world they were strongly committed to helping developing countries fight poverty and combat devastating diseases, such as AIDS. But their goodwill declarations have left many NGOs frustrated at the contrast between the billions of dollars promised and the lack of concrete action taken on decisive issues such as easing access to low-cost drugs for the world's poorest countries.
"The good news of the summit is that billions are now on the table, but the objectives set in Okinawa Prefecture in 2000 are far from being reached and the situation has since deteriorated," said Bernard Pecoul, a representative of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), referring to an earlier G-8 pledge to reduce by 25 percent the number of young people infected by HIV/AIDS and by 50 percent the mortality due to tuberculosis and malaria.
About 95 percent of the 42 million people infected with HIV/AIDS live in developing countries, where the number of children infected has tripled to 3.2 million between 2000 and 2002, according to MSF. Experts say the three most prevailing infectious diseases kill 14 million people each year, deprive the poorest countries of a strong workforce and remain a major obstacle to development.
In a "health action plan" adopted on Tuesday, G-8 leaders reaffirmed their support for a global fund set up two years ago by the United Nations and the G-8 to combat these diseases. The fund is already short of more than 4 billion dollars that it needs to carry out its 2003-04 program.
But U.S. President George W. Bush's recent pledge to launch a 15 billion dollars plan to boost efforts to cure and prevent AIDS has prompted European Union leaders to increase their contributions to the fund. Hailing Bush's gesture, French President Jacques Chirac said France would triple its own contribution to 150 million dollars in 2004 and he announced that the European Union was ready to participate to the tune of 1 billion dollars.
"We will also do our billion," Chirac said in response to a Bush declaration challenging the Europeans to equal U.S. efforts.
Observers said this transatlantic fund-raising competition has overshadowed one of the most promising commitments of the World Trade Organization talks in Doha--one that granted developing countries the right to produce generic medicines patented by Western companies.
"Compared to first drafts, the G-8 health plan has been watered down. All the essential issues have been circumvented to protect the interests of U.S. firms," Pecoul said. "It's nonsense to spend billions dollars to help developing countries buy drugs if they will pay four times the price they would cost if they were produced locally."
In Evian, the G-8 leaders welcomed "the voluntary commitments of pharmaceutical companies to provide essential medicines at discounted prices to developing countries," but postponed any agreement on the patents issue to the WTO summit in Cancun, Mexico, in September. "We agreed to be in agreement in Cancun," said Chirac spokeswoman Catherine Colonna, who recognized that positions were still "too opposite."
British aid agency Oxfam slammed the G-8 declaration as little more than "a bland statement of intent."
"The issue of patents is the most significant running sore in the health debate, and they have completely skirted it," Oxfam spokesman Phil Twyford said.
Pharmaceutical companies have long been criticized by health activists for the prices they charge for HIV/AIDS drugs and for the pressure they have brought to bear to prevent the production of generic versions of the medicines. But the firms say they have to make profits to fund research, and the patent system ensures they can do this.
MSF also called in Evian for a global pact to boost research into treatments for the diseases that mostly affect less developed economies. "The G-8 should have taken action to increase research on neglected diseases, and to facilitate the transfer of technology," Pecoul said.
He said the vaccine against tuberculosis was discovered a century ago, and that the poorest countries were in urgent need of treatments adapted to their situations. "But such research does not interest laboratories," he said.The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)| By Jean Serror Yomiuri Shimbun:
