AU promises Aids drugs for all
2006-05-05 15:16
Abuja - African leaders have renewed their commitment to fight HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria by providing those affected with universal access to drugs and treatment.
The leaders gave the commitment at the end of an African summit on the diseases, which have claimed millions of lives in the continent, on Thursday.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said the African Union-backed summit ended with a "renewed commitment" of the leaders to meet the targets, agreed in Abuja in 2000 and 2001, as the United Nations' millennium development goals.
Obasanjo said: "We have now agreed we are going to have universal access. Universal access is not talking of 80%, not even 90%. It's 100% access to preventive and treatment services."
AU head and Congo president, Dennis Sassou-Nguesso, said the meeting adopted three important documents, one of which was the "Abuja call for accelerated action towards universal access to HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria."
He said African countries were urged "to enact and utilise appropriate legislations and international trade regulations and flexibilities, to ensure the availability of medicine and commodities at affordable prices."
Debt cancellation to finance Aids prevention
They were to intensify a "practical leadership role at national, regional and continental levels to mobilise society as a whole to fight HIV/Aids, TB and malaria more effectively", said Nguesso.
The leaders also pledged to mobilise local resources to sustain the fight against the three diseases.
Also on the agenda in the continent's battle against HIV/Aids, malaria and TB was the negotiation of debt cancellation, and grants at national and regional levels.
This, leaders said, was specifically targeted at being able to finance the prevention and treatment of the diseases, as well as the financing of the care and support of patients.
Nguesso said the summit had also adopted a common African position on next month's UN general assembly special session on Aids, and a decision on the approach of member-states and policies on the rights of people infected and affected by Aids in Africa.
- AFP