E-DRUG: G8 and universal access: a criminal turnaround
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Act Up-Paris Press Release: 1 July 2008
The G8 gives up on universal access to treatment for 2010: a criminal
turnaround
According to the Financial Times [1], the G8 is priming itself to go
back on the commitments it pledged at the Glenneagles summit in 2005.
Universal access to aids treatments will not longer be guaranteed by
2010, and the increase of 25 billion euros of aid for African
development is no longer certain for 2015.
Disastrous Consequences for the fight against AIDS
70% of people living with AIDS today do not have access to the
treatments that would save their lives. The price of medications, the
under-funding of treatment access, the lack of resources to resolve the
health professionals crisis in Africa: these are the plagues that the G8
took on in 2005, to finally and effectively combat the AIDS pandemic,
which every day kills eight thousand people around the world. Indeed,
the G8 had committed itself to universal access to treatment by 2010. To
go back on these promises, to postpone these financial commitments,
would be to admit and even to accept that those eight thousand people
die dailyâ€"the majority in Southern countries. It would be humanely and
politically unacceptable, and this possibility makes us deeply angry.
Sarkozy, Kouchner, Woerth and Joyandet: the primary culprits
Since the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president of the Republic,
France has not stopped going back on its commitments to health. Since
December 2007, organizations have had to fight to ensure that the French
contribution to the fight against AIDS is not reduced [2], where it is
already completely insufficient (that is the work of Eric Woerth,
Minister of the Budget). More recently, the Secretary of State for
Cooperation officially devoted the new politics of development in France
to cynicism and profitability [3]: if France is going to give to Africa,
France must get something out of it - so the poor countries must give
something to France. Such is the credo of the Sarkozy government.
Let's be reminded that for a year now, France has given at least 14
billion euros to the most rich threw a new tax policy.
Call for International Mobilization
By abandoning their commitments for 2010, the leaders of the G8 once
again betray those who are sick. This Wednesday, July 2, Act Up-Paris
will make public the phone and fax numbers and email addresses of the
people in charge at the Elyse, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the
Secretary of State for Cooperation. We invite every citizen and especially organizations representing the PLWAs in France, in Africa, and throughout the world to contact these offices and to demand that they hold to the promises they made at Glenneagles.
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