Associated Press - Wednesday October 10, 2001
Emma Tinkler, Associated Press Writer

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the 33 ministers who attended the Asia Pacific Ministerial Meeting - held alongside the 6th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific - would encourage the further development of national action plans on AIDS prevention, care and treatment.

"We all have a common goal: to address the threat of HIV/AIDS, the shadow of which is lengthening over our region," Downer said in a joint session of the two summits. "No country can claim to be safe from the reach of this epidemic. Every single day of last year saw about 3,000 (people) newly infected with HIV in our region."

Downer said the Australian government would pledge $25 million of a $100 million global initiative on HIV/AIDS announced last year directly to major projects in Asia and the Pacific.

Australia would also, if asked, "provide support to Asia-Pacific governments to draft legislation to facilitate cost-effective access to essential HIV/AIDS drugs," he said.

However, Downer repeated Australia's determination that international trade agreements be adhered to on patents for HIV and AIDS treatment drugs.

Developing countries have called on the World Trade Organization to overrule pharmaceutical patent rights on drugs in circumstances that constitute a health emergency.

"Obviously, we would like to feel these drugs can be made available at the lowest possible price, but that has to be done in a way that is consistent with international law and it has to be an appropriate regime to make it possible," Downer said.

Some 36 million people around the world are living with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, according to the United Nations (news - web sites) AIDS agency, UNAIDS. In Asia, 6.4 million people carry the virus.

The five-day congress saw 3,500 lawmakers, health professionals and AIDS workers discussing ways to combat the spread of the disease through Asia, and better ways to provide care and treatment to those already affected.

In a manifesto also delivered Wednesday, the Congress called on drug companies to put people before "patent rights and private profits," and for communities to oppose all forms of discrimination of those infected with the virus.

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