E-drug: Lancet on WHA
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http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol359/iss9319/full/llan.359.9319.news.2114
6.1
Brundtland sets out priorities at annual World Health Assembly
Lancet 2002; 359: 1759 (May 18)
WHO plans to step up its campaigns against poverty-related diseases
whilst also intensifying programmes aimed at tackling cardiovascular
illnesses, obesity, and other ailments of richer nations,
director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland told the annual world health
assembly (WHA) on May 13.
But as Brundtland set out WHO's priorities, activists criticised the
agency for doing too little to further its once vaunted goal of
health--and hence medicines--for all.
"The world is living dangerously: either because it has little choice;
or because it is making the wrong choices about consumption and
activity", Brundtland said in her opening address to the 191-nation WHA,
which considered issues ranging from bioterrorism to infant feeding.
She said she wanted to "reinvigorate WHO's work on diet, food safety,
and human nutrition, linking basic research with efforts to tackle
specific nutrient deficiencies in populations and the promotion of good
health through optimal diets".
Brundtland said WHO should be proud of putting health firmly on
political agendas and for pioneering global initiatives such as Roll
Back Malaria, Stop TB, and immunisation partnerships. But far more was
needed, she stressed.
"We must further increase the funding for tackling the illnesses of
poverty. We must increase the number of people who can access
treatments, like antiretrovirals, at the same time as we scale up
prevention programmes. We must do all we can to increase access to
essential medicines and health technologies", she continued.
As Brundtland was speaking in the elegant assembly hall, M�decins Sans
Fronti�res (MSF) stationed a truck carrying an exhibition entitled
"TRAPPED" outside the UN compound in a bid to drive home its concerns
that WHO isn't doing enough on this front.
MSF hailed WHO's recognition of generic producers such as Cipla and the
recent inclusion of antiretrovirals on its list of essential medicines.
But it urged WHO to show more courage in taking on pharmaceutical giants
to further lower the price of drugs in poor countries and to take a
higher profile in the ongoing debate on free trade and patent
protection.
"WHO has been a follower, not a leader; an observer, not an actor", said
Ellen 't Hoen, coordinator of the MSF Access Campaign. "Be more active.
We need a strong public health voice for those who are silent", she
appealed.
Bernard Pecoul, an MSF director, lamented the omission of research and
development funding from the WHA agenda. He said WHO was minimising the
crisis caused by the chronic lack of industry interest in developing new
drugs against "neglected" diseases such as leishmaniasis and Chagas
disease and against increasingly resistant strains of malaria which
affect millions every year. Of the 1393 new drugs approved between 1975
and 1999, only 13 were specifically indicated for a tropical disease,
according to MSF.
A grassroots coalition from developing countries, under the banner of
the People's Health Assembly, accused WHO of forgetting its former goal
of Health for All by 2000. "Data on very sensitive health indices
including infant, maternal, and under 5 mortality rates, life expectancy
at birth, and prevalence of malnutrition show the alarming fall of
health standards", the group said. "During a period of 10 years between
1990 and 2000, life expectancy of over a billion people has gone down by
10 years from 50 to 40."
Clare Kapp
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