WASHINGTON, July 13 (AFP) - The United States defended Tuesday its effort to fight the AIDS scourge after coming under criticism from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac.
Chirac said in a speech at an ongoing AIDS conference in Bangkok that US demands on bilateral trade eroded a vital international deal to provide cheap HIV drugs to developing nations.
Asking Washington to show the same commitment to the battle against AIDS as the war on terror, Annan charged that the United States had not lived up to its promises, and should put more towards the Global Fund, the world's war chest to fight the pandemic.
Responding to the criticism, the US State Department said the efforts the United States had made and was making on the HIV front "far surpasses that of any other nation."
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said "I think it's important to remember a number of facts about the United States and AIDS prevention," citing the United States as the world's largest contributor to international efforts against AIDS.
He said Washington had also contributed 36 percent of all pledges to date to the Global Fund.
President George W. Bush has pledged 15 billion dollars over five years to fight AIDS, but mainly through bilateral arrangements with countries rather than the Global Fund.
In an address to the AIDS conference read out by a French minister, Chirac had called on countries to implement a multilateral trade accord that lets poor, AIDS-ravaged nations bypass international patent obligations, thus enabling them to buy cheap copycat "generic" drugs without fear of reprisal.
"Making certain countries drop these measures in the framework of bilateral trade negotiations would be tantamount to blackmail," Chirac said.
The risk, he said, was that countries would be forced to buy expensive patented drugs, leaving innumerable HIV-infected citizens on the sidelines.
"What is the point of starting treatment without any guarantee of having quality and affordable drugs in the long term?" Chirac asked.
US trade deals with Chile, Jordan and Singapore include provisions for beefing up protection for patented, brand-name drugs.
Boucher said the United States had "shown a very similar commitment against AIDS as it does in the battle against terrorism."
He said Secretary of State Colin Powell had made clear from the beginning of the Bush administration that it viewed AIDS as one of the greatest threats to mankind.
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