[Ip-health] MSF intervention at WHO EB on MDGs

[James ARKINSTALL]

Statement delivered by Michelle Childs, Director of Policy and Advocacy at
MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines

---------------

Thank you Chair.

The DG noted in her report that there has been some progress towards
meeting the Millennium Development Goals, but that it is uneven, fragile
and threatened by uncertain funding.

Unprecedented efforts have given four million people living with HIV access
to treatment, but 10 million more have been left behind. The gaps in
maternal and childhood health services, including emergency obstetric care
and vaccinations against pneumonia and even measles, desperately need to be
addressed. As the Secretariat has pointed out, without better diagnostics
and medicines, we will not be able to meet the MDG for tuberculosis.

In relation to MDGs 1 and 4, the World Bank recently estimated that $12.5
billion is needed annually to scale up effective nutrition programs
globally, including therapeutic and complementary feeding at community
level, for the three to five million young children killed by malnutrition
each year.

Barely four years after world leaders met at the 2006 United Nations
General Assembly and committed to universal access to HIV prevention,
treatment and care, political and funding support is retreating.  We are
already witnessing the early signs of the effects of such retreat in
treatment programmes in a number of African countries. The goal of
universal access is also threatened by the effects of the global economic
and financial crisis.

In relation to the Resolution, there are additional points that need to be
included.  A reference should be inserted on the need to implement the
Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and
Intellectual Property, ensuring adequate innovation and access to the
health technologies needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

M=E9decins Sans Fronti=E8res urges WHO to play a leading role in monitoring=
 and
reporting on the health programmes that are at risk from the effects of the
economic and financial crisis, and in estimating the financial gaps that
remain.

We ask the Executive Board to highlight the need for Member States to make
additional pledges to increase funding for health-related MDGs, ahead of
the forthcoming MDG plenary and Global Fund replenishment conferences.  WHO
should play a leading role in ensuring that health needs are addressed in
ongoing discussions on innovative finance mechanisms such as financial
transaction taxes.

Finally, the MDG Gap TaskForce Report 2009 states that action is also
required at the national and international levels to improve the
accessibility and affordability of essential medicines, including the use
of TRIPS flexibilities, such as high patentability criteria and compulsory
licensing, and the establishment of patent pools, such as the patent pool
for HIV medicines currently being set up by UNITAID. By ensuring a
competitive supply for essential medicines, such measures will enable funds
to stretch as far as possible to meet needs and contain costs.

Thank you for Chair.

-ENDS-

James Arkinstall
Managing Editor
MSF Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
office +33 1 40 21 28 35
mobile + 33 6 13 99 77 51