# \[e-drug\] Ouagadougou Appeal **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [January 12, 2002, 10:35am UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-ouagadougou-appeal/13362 "2002-01-12T10:35:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jablonski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9bd4f/32.png) [@jablonski](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/jablonski)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2002, 10:35am UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-ouagadougou-appeal/13362/1 "2002-01-12T10:35:09Z")
E-drug: Ouagadougou Appeal ------------------------------------------------------------ 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 -- To send a message to E-Drug, write to: e-drug@usa.healthnet.org To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org in the body of the message type: subscribe e-drug OR unsubscribe e-drug To contact a person, send a message to: owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org Information and archives: [http://www.healthnet.org/programs/edrug.html](http://www.healthnet.org/programs/edrug.html)