E-DRUG: European Parliament resolution on AIDS and Access to medicines
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Please find below the Resolution adopted by the European Parliament today
on HIV/AIDS, passed overwhelmingly. From para 13 the part about Access to
medicines.
Alexandra Heumber
EU Advocacy Liaison Officer
Médecins Sans Frontières
Access to Essential Medicines Campaign
Rue Dupré, 94. 1090 Brussels
++32 (0) 2 474 75 09 (Dir off)
++ 32 (0) 479 514 900 (Mob)
++ 32 (0) 2 474 75 75 (Fax)
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The European Parliament,
- having regard to its resolution of 3 July 2006 on 'HIV/AIDS: Time to
Deliver' and its resolution of 2 December 2004 on HIV/AIDS Day,
- having regard to World AIDS Day on 1 December 2006 and its theme of
'Accountability: Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise',
- having regard to the UNAIDS/WHO 2006 AIDS Epidemic Update, published on
21 November,
- having regard to the UN General Assembly meeting to review progress on
the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, held from 31 May to 1 June
2006,
- having regard to the XVI International AIDS Conference, held in Toronto
in August 2006,
- having regard to the European Programme for Action to confront HIV/AIDS,
Malaria and Tuberculosis, covering all developing countries for the period
2007-2011, adopted by the European Commission in April 2005,(1)
- having regard to the Commission Communication to the Council and the
European Parliament on combating HIV/AIDS within the European Union and in
the neighbouring countries, 2006-2009, of 15 December 2005,(2)
- having regard to the G8 Gleneagles Summit and the UN's 2005 commitment
to achieving universal access to prevention treatment and care by 2010,
- having regard to Rule 103(4) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas since the first identified case of AIDS 25 years ago, more than
25 million people have died from the disease,
B. whereas in 2006 there were 4.3 million new infections, with 2.8 million
(65%) of these in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, according to the UNAIDS report
published on 21 November 2006,
C. whereas over 95% of the 39.5 million people worldwide suffering from
HIV/AIDS live in developing countries,
D. whereas there are indications that infection rates in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia have risen by more than 50% since 2004, and there are
only a few examples of countries that have actually reduced new
infections,
E. whereas of the 6.8 million people living with HIV in low- and
middle-income countries who are in need of anti-retroviral medication,
only 24% have access to the necessary treatment,
F. whereas there are an estimated 15 million HIV/AIDS orphans globally,
12.3 million of these being in Sub-Saharan Africa alone,
G. whereas only 5% of HIV-positive children receive medical help, and
fewer than 10% of those 15 million already orphaned by AIDS get financial
support,
H. whereas older siblings and grandparents take on responsibility for
often large numbers of AIDS orphans, and the dying generation of
HIV/AIDS-infected young adults is leaving some countries without enough
teachers, nurses, doctors and other key professionals,
I. whereas AIDS disproportionately affects the generation of economically
active young people,
J. whereas women now represent 50% of people living with HIV worldwide and
nearly 60% of people living with HIV in Africa,
K. whereas sexual and reproductive health is intrinsically linked to
prevention of HIV and other diseases of poverty ,
L. whereas people living with HIV have special reproductive health needs
in terms of family planning, safe birthing and breastfeeding of babies,
which are often overlooked in spite of the feminisation of the epidemic,
M. whereas the International Conference on Population and Development
(ICPD) of 1994 and ICPD follow-up undertaken in 1999 and 2004 reaffirmed
the importance of empowering women and providing them with more choices
through expanded access to education, information and care as regards
sexual and reproductive health,
N. whereas five years after the Doha Declaration, rich countries are
failing to fulfil their obligation to ensure that cheaper life-saving
drugs are available in developing countries,
O. whereas five years after the Doha Declaration, which stated that 'each
member state of the WTO has the right to grant compulsory licenses and the
freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licenses are granted',
the WHO warns that 74% of AIDS medicines are still under monopoly and 77%
of Africans still have no access to AIDS treatment,
P. whereas since 2000 fierce generic competition has helped prices for
first-line AIDS drug regimens to fall by 99%, from $10,000 to roughly $130
per patient per year, but prices for second-line drugs - which patients
need as resistance develops naturally - remain high, mostly owing to
increased patent barriers in key generic-producing countries,
Q. whereas in the negotiation of bilateral trade deal, agreements should
not limit how countries can use public-health safeguards,
HIV/AIDS in the world
1. Expresses its deepest concern at the expansion of HIV/AIDS and other
epidemics amongst the poorest populations in the world and at the lack of
focus on prevention of HIV/AIDS, inaccessibility of key medicines,
insufficient funding and the lack of research efforts on the major
epidemics;
2. Stresses the importance of accountability of governments, health
service providers, the pharmaceutical industry, NGOs and civil society,
and others involved in prevention, treatment and care;
3. Calls on all international donors to work to ensure that HIV prevention
programmes reach the people most at risk of infection as identified in the
UNAIDS conclusion that these vulnerable groups are not being provided for;
4. Stresses the need for the EU to fund specific programmes to ensure that
those children affected by the AIDS epidemic through the loss of one or
both parents or through contracting the disease themselves remain in
education and are supported;
5. Calls on all aid programmes to make sure that once a patient starts a
course of treatment, funding is provided for continued uninterrupted
treatment, in order to prevent the increased drug resistance that results
from interrupted treatments;
6. Stresses the need for the EU to fund programmes to protect women from
all forms of violence that propagate AIDS and to ensure that victims are
afforded access to health services and the opportunity to reintegrate into
society and to combat the stigma that often affects victims of such
crimes;
7. Calls on the IMF to end monetary conditions and fiscal ceilings that
force countries to restrict spending on public health and education;
Sexual and reproductive health
8. Stresses that the strategies needed to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic
effectively must include a comprehensive approach to prevention,
education, care and treatment and must include the technologies currently
in use, expanded access to treatment and the development of vaccines as a
matter of urgency;
9. Calls on the European Commission and the governments of our partner
countries to ensure that health and education, and HIV/AIDS and sexual and
reproductive health in particular, are prioritised in Country Strategy
Papers;
10. Calls on the Commission and Member States to support programmes that
combat homophobia and break down the barriers that stop effective tackling
of the disease, especially in Cambodia, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan,
Thailand and Vietnam and across Latin America, where there is increasing
evidence of HIV outbreaks among men who have sex with men;
11. Welcomes the inclusion of research into HIV/AIDS in the 7th Research
Framework Programme and calls for research on vaccines and microbicides,
diagnostic and monitoring tools suited to developing countries' needs,
epidemic transmission patterns and social and behavioural trends to be
supported; underlines that women must be involved in all appropriate
clinical research, including vaccine trials;
12. Calls for investment in the development of female-controlled
prevention methods such as microbicides, female condoms and post-exposure
prophylaxis for survivors of rape;
Access to medicines
13. Encourages governments to use all the possibilities available to them
under the TRIPs Agreement, such as compulsory licences, and for the WHO
and the WTO and its members to review the whole of the TRIPs Agreement
with a view to improving access to medicines;
14. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to recognise, five years
after the adoption of the Doha Declaration, that its application has been
a failure, as the WTO has not received any notification from an exporting
or importing country of compulsory medicines, nor has it received any such
notification under the Decision of 30 August 2003;
15. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take the necessary
steps in the WTO, in association with the developing countries, to modify
the TRIPS Agreement and its article based on the Decision of 30 August
2003, particularly in order to abolish the complex, time-consuming
procedural steps needed for authorisation of compulsory licenses;
16. Meanwhile, encourages and calls on all countries facing major
epidemics to make immediate use of Article 30 of the TRIPS Agreement to
access the necessary medicines without paying royalties for patents to the
right-owners;
17. Calls on the Commission to increase to 1 billion euros its
contribution to the global fund against HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, as
clearly requested by the EP in its resolution of December 2004, and on all
Member States and G8 members to increase their contribution to 7 billion
in 2007 and 8 billion in 2008, in order to provide UNAIDS with the
resources necessary to reduce the epidemics;
18. Supports the commitment made by heads of state and government at the
2005 UN World Summit calling for universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention
services, treatment and care by 2010; believes, however, that a clear plan
for funding universal access should be developed and international and
interim progress targets set;
19. Stresses that strong public health services, including research
facilities, are essential in order to fight the epidemic, and opposes the
situation of conditionality leading to their liberalisation;
20. Calls for support for the developing growth of regional and national
generic drug industries in affected areas with a view to facilitating
access to affordable drugs;
21. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the
Commission, the governments of the EU Member States and ACP countries, the
IMF, the Government of the United States, the UN Secretary-General and the
heads of UNAIDS, UNDP and UNFPA.