AFRO-NETS> U.N. Says Essential Drugs Not Sufficient

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

U.N. Says Essential Drugs Not Sufficient
----------------------------------------

A third of all people are unable to obtain life-saving medicines, WHO 
declares.

GENEVA -- Life-saving medicines are not available to one-third of the 
world's population despite a long international campaign for wider 
access to essential drugs, the World Health Organization said Monday.

In the 25 years since WHO drew up its essential drugs and medicines 
list, the number of people able to obtain those medicines has dou-
bled, but there remains "a huge unfinished agenda," said Jonathan 
Quick, the head of the U.N. agency's project.

"We still have 2 billion people who can't regularly get medicines 
when they need them, at a quality they trust and at a price they or 
their community can afford," Quick told health experts at a discus-
sion attended by journalists.

The U.N. health agency's list includes more than 300 medicines and 
aims to guide mainly Third World governments and health bodies on 
what drugs should be available, at what quality and price and in what 
dosage.

In poor countries, where a daily income of $1 or $2 is the norm, the 
burden of financing health care often falls on those who are sick.

WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland said so-called out-of-
pocket payments by patients account for as much as 90% of total 
health care spending in some poor countries.

"For many, the reality is stark: No cash, no cure," she said.

Bernard Pecoul of Doctors Without Borders said patents, particularly 
on AIDS treatments, translate into high prices, "with the direct re-
sult that people in developing countries cannot afford to save their 
own lives."

"We cannot accept the sick logic that says he who cannot pay, dies," 
he said. 

--
Claudio Schuftan
Hanoi, Vietnam
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn

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