Developing countries, poverty diseases: combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis

The committee unanimously adopted the report by Anders WIJKMAN (EPP-ED, S) broadly approving the proposal under the codecision procedure (1st reading), subject to a number of amendments seeking inter alia to ensure that the projects eligible for funding under the regulation included: - making prevention a key priority and recognising the need for a multi-sectoral approach, including targeting behavioural patterns as well as factors such as clean water and sanitation, land-use planning, nutrition, gender-mainstreaming, etc.; - strengthening public health services in developing countries; - improving the understanding of the effects of poverty diseases on social and economic development and the impact of strategies designed to mitigate those effects; - developing quality local production of key preventive and therapeutic pharmaceuticals consistent with the Doha declaration on TRIPS and public health; - promoting a tiered pricing mechanism for key pharmaceuticals for developing countries that will guarantee the lowest possible prices; - encouraging public investment as well as private investment in R & D for new treatments, diagnostics, and fixed-dose combinations to treat the three diseases; - training personnel from the developing countries; - supporting initiatives which enable the quality of pharmaceutical products to be supervised and monitored. The committee added that it should also be possible for Community support to take the form of transfer of technology and know-how for the purpose of local pharmaceuticals production. Moreover, partners eligible for financial assistance should include funds and programmes. Lastly, to ensure greater transparency, MEPs wanted the Commission's annual report on EC development policy to include such information as the operations of the Global Fund, the concrete results achieved in relation to the objectives set and the amounts of the signed contracts. �