E-drug: Ouagadougou Appeal
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At the last International Conference on Aids and STD's in Africa,
which took place last November 9 through 13 in Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso, several thousand people have signed the
Ouagadougou Appeal urging the Global Fund against Aids,
Tuberculosis and Malaria to give due priority to HIV treatment
access.
The medical and scientific community has now proved beyond a
doubt that antiretroviral care is feasible in poor countries. 'Technical
soundness' arguments can no longer be presented to justify leaving
people with aids without the treatments they need. The urgency of
the situation demands that donors and backers take immediate
action.
On January 28 and 29 in Geneva, the final Board of the Global
Fund against Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria will have its first
meeting. This is when the Global Fund must clarify officially that it
is going to finance access to treatment on a massive scale, and
prepare to implement this with all due speed. More than ever,
mobilisation is essential in order to make decision-makers hear the
needs of those most concerned. That is why we ask you to sign
and circulate the Ouagadougou Appeal, with a view to its being
handed out to Global Fund Board members at their January 28
meeting. (you can sign the appeal : send your mail to galk@noos.fr)
The Ouagadougou Appeal
The Access to antiretroviral drugs should be a priority of the Global
Fund. We, people living with HIV, actors and associations engaged
in the fight against Aids, meeting in the XIIth ICASA from 9 to 13
December 2001 in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) solemnly demand
the access to antiretroviral treatment for Aids patients in developing
countries. For theses reasons, we demand the Global Fund to
include the purchase of antiretroviral drugs as well as the financing
programmes of access to care in developing countries, and in
particular in Africa, as an absolute priority whatever the prevalence
rates.
In April 2001, Kofi Annan announced the establishment of a Global
Fund, destined to mobilise 10 billions US dollars for the fight against
Aids and declared " It is unacceptable that the poorest Aids patients
should be denied access to drugs that have changed the lives of
patients living in rich countries. Therefore, the Global Fund should
undertake to provide the necessary to save the lives of people living
with the HIV.
To this end, it should prioritise and speed up the required financing
for the purchase of drugs that should be as cheap as possible,
guaranteed by international competition, the use of generic drugs
and bulk-buying. The Global Fund should, in all urgency, support
programmes of access to existing drugs and those to be provide, be
they associative or governmental programmes. The Global Fund
cannot and should not put forward insufficient resources to justify
the setting up of measures that are clearly un-adapted, such as the
putting in place of prevention policies devoid of all access to
treatment. The experts are resolute, efficient prevention supposes
by a recognition of the disease, and thus the medical treatment of
Aids patients. Only antiretroviral drugs can fight against the virus
and prevent an early death. In this way they fundamentally change
the scope of the disease.
At the UN special session held in June 2001, in New York and
during the G8 meeting in July 2001 in Geneva (Italy), states the
resolved to commit themselves. If the Global Fund fails to include
antiretroviral drugs as one of its major priorities by ear-marking a
minimum of 30% of financing for their purchase, the Fund would
have betrayed the expectations of millions of persons infected by
Aids as well as members of their families and will be responsible for
an unprecedented human health catastrophe.
Olivier Jablonski
Act Up-Paris
jablonski@altern.org
www.actupp.org
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