[Ip-health] IHT, NYT: G-8's drug aid for poor catches an ailment: politics

[Sheila.SHETTLE@geneva.msf.org]

G-8's drug aid for poor catches an ailment: politics
By Elisabeth Rosenthal International Herald Tribune

Published: July 14, 2006

ROME Hopes that the Group of 8 leaders meeting in Russia this weekend will
agree to a much-anticipated program to help finance vaccines and drugs for
the developing world are fading, with competing proposals stalled by
political differences and rivalries.

"What's concerning is how politicized the whole thing has become," said
Tido Von Sh=F6n-Angerer of the Campaign for Essential Medicines at M=E9deci=
ns
sans Fronti=E8res. "It's a shame because each proposal had its merits."

The global problem of infectious disease is a major item on the summit
agenda and many health experts were convinced that a plan to induce vaccine
makers to focus more on the developing world, an idea previously endorsed
by G-8 committees, would be announced.

But mention of the proposal has been left out of the draft final
communiqu=E9, said a senior international official familiar with the
negotiations. "This was an opportunity for a big push forward and now it
appears it's not going to happen," he said.

In the last few years, its has become a mantra of international meetings
that rich countries need to help poor countries gain access to medicines
that are often inaccessible because of cost and patent protection. But
there is little agreement about how to do that, and three competing
proposals have been raised by G-8 members.

Under one, called the Advance Market Commitment plan, proposed by Italy and
strongly endorsed by the United States, rich countries would create a fund
to guarantee that poor nations could purchase new vaccines designed for
their use, providing drug makers with incentive to research and manufacture
shots for diseases like malaria and viral diarrhea.

A second proposal, championed by the British and called the International
Finance Facility for Immunizations, would call for wealthy nations to float
bonds to raise revenue to pay for the vaccines needed in the developing
world.

A third concept, put forward by France, would revolve around a new airline
ticket surcharge whose proceeds would be used to buy drugs for poor
countries.

The French and British have supported each other's proposals and have begun
to enact them at a national level, even without the G-8 imprimatur. But the
first proposal, which many experts hoped would be finalized at this G-8
meeting, is now in limbo.

In the run-up to the summit meeting, international officials connected to
the Advanced Market proposal have accused the French of horse-trading,
refusing to discuss it unless the G-8 leaders - and the United States in
particular - agreed to consider the airline ticket tax on an equal basis.

The French have adamantly denied the charge. "In principle we are open to
the proposal," said Jerome Bonnafont, spokesman for President Jacques
Chirac, although he noted that France still had "technical" concerns.

As for the airline initiative, Bonnafont said, "We would like as many
countries as possible to join our initiative," but said France was not
creating a link between the two.

The United States has completely rejected the French idea.

"Anything that smacks of a transnational tax is anathema to the U.S.," said
an official who was involved in the discussions.

Aid programs have recently focused on vaccine since preventing disease is
cheaper than treating it. But most recently released vaccines - for example
against viral diarrhea - are too expensive for poor countries.

The French and British plans create new reserves to buy existing vaccines
for poor countries than can't afford them even at low prices.

The Advanced Market Commitment seeks to address this flaw, Bateman said, by
guaranteeing specific financial rewards to manufacturers that develop
vaccines for diseases that primarily afflict the developing world, like
malaria. The G-8 would essentially promise to pay manufacturers in advance
for purchases by poor nations that wanted to use a new vaccine.

In April, G-8 finance ministers endorsed that idea, selecting for a pilot
project a new broad-spectrum vaccine, in the final stages of development,
that would treat the pneumococcus bacteria, a cause of deadly infections in
poor nations. They had anticipated a start this year.

"It would be good if the G-8 could address these ideas together to create
framework, rather than losing them all," said Von Sch=F6n-Angerer.

Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting from Paris.


+++++++++++++++++++++
Sheila Shettle
Communications Officer
M=E9decins Sans Fronti=E8res
Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
Rue de Lausanne 78
1211 Geneva
Switzerland
+ 41.22.849.8403
sheila.shettle@geneva.msf.org
www.accessmed-msf.org