[Ip-health] New York Times: Five Nations to Tax Airfare to Raise Funds for AIDS Drugs

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

September 19, 2006


  Five Nations to Tax Airfare to Raise Funds for AIDS Drugs

By CELIA W. DUGGER
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/celia_w_dugge=
r/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-per>

A group of countries led by France
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/f=
rance/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-geo>
plan to raise at least $300 million next year, mostly through taxes on
airline tickets, to help pay for the treatment of children with AIDS
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopic=
s/aids/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-classifier>,
tuberculosis
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopic=
s/tuberculosis/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-classifier>
and malaria
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopic=
s/malaria/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-classifier>,
a senior French official said yesterday.

The countries, acting through a new Geneva-based organization called
Unitaid, plan to pool their buying power and have asked former President
Bill Clinton
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/=
index.html?inline=3Dnyt-per>=92s
foundation to negotiate with drug companies for volume discounts.

The countries =97 France, Brazil
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razil/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-geo>,
Britain
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/u=
nitedkingdom/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-geo>,
Norway
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/n=
orway/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-geo>
and Chile
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/c=
hile/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-geo>
=97 will announce the new undertaking today at the United Nations
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united=
_nations/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-org>.

In all, they say, the plan can help pay for the treatment of 100,000
children with AIDS, and another 100,000 people who have become resistant
to antiretroviral AIDS drugs, as well as the treatment of 150,000
children with tuberculosis and 28 million with malaria.

=93We would not permit thousands of children to die in the United States
and France,=94 said Jean Dussourd, a French official who is coordinating
the project for President Jacques Chirac
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/jacques_chira=
c/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-per>.
=93Why should we allow that in Asia and Africa?=94

The new infusion of money was welcomed by public health experts, who
said long-term financing through dedicated taxes was especially suited
for the lifelong treatment of people with AIDS.

Though France and the other donors have promised that the aid will be in
addition to other poverty financing, some analysts, like Steven Radelet
at the Center for Global Development in Washington, worry that the
airline tax revenue will eventually supplant traditional sources of
assistance from annual government budgets.

Other experts warned that the focus on the purchase of medicine and
diagnostic tests did not deal with the most difficult obstacles to
treatment in Africa: the extreme shortage of health workers and
broken-down public health systems.

=93Any solution that addresses diagnostics and drugs but not the human
resources crisis and the lack of political will in many African settings
will not be comprehensive,=94 said Dr. Mark W. Kline, a pediatrics
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopic=
s/pediatrics/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-classifier>
professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, which is
sponsoring 50 American pediatricians working in seven African countries.

Officials from France and the William J. Clinton Foundation say
Unitaid=92s aim is not to single-handedly deliver AIDS drugs to children
and other neglected groups, but to provide a reliable source of
financing for the medicine and diagnostics and to free up other groups
to focus on systemic problems in African public health.

=93We=92ll have a sustainable way to assure a supply of drugs and tests for
the long term,=94 said Ira Magaziner, who leads the Clinton Foundation=92s
AIDS program. Buying in bulk, he said, would also allow Unitaid to
negotiate significantly lower prices.

France is the dominant donor to Unitaid, providing $250 million of the
$300 million for next year, all from an airline ticket tax it began
collecting this summer. It is charging 4 euros, about $5, for every
international economy ticket and 40 euros, about $51, for first-class ones.

Britain is contributing about $25 million next year, drawn from its
growing foreign aid budget, an amount that will rise to $76 million by
2010, British officials said.

A dozen more countries are actively considering contributing by imposing
airline ticket taxes of their own, Mr. Dussourd said.

The United States, which has its own ambitious global AIDS program, has
rejected the idea of financing a health program with an airline tax.

The United Nations AIDS agency estimates that only about 80,000 of the
660,000 children who need antiretroviral drugs globally are getting
them. Mr. Clinton said in an interview yesterday that the money from
Unitaid means poor countries with high H.I.V. infection rates would not
have to ask themselves, =93Shall I save three 20-year-olds or two kids?=94