United Press International - Wednesday, 16 May 2001
John Zarocostas

He said unless something as big as the Marshall Plan -- which revitalized Europe after the World War II -- was attempted, the disease would prevent some African countries from functioning.

According to a U.N. report, of the 36.1 million people infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide, an estimated 25 million are in Africa. In seven sub-Saharan countries over 22 percent of the population suffers from the disease. Last year 3 million died from the virus and another 5 million -- an average of 13,000 people a day -- were infected.

In his keynote address to the American International Club of Geneva, Thompson said there was an urgent need to prevent the pandemic from spreading in South Asia, China, and Europe and eventually to America.

A special session of the U.N. general assembly is to focus on the AIDS pandemic in June. At an African summit meeting in April, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan proposed the creation of a global fund for fighting AIDS and other pandemics.

The U.N. chief said an additional $7 billion to $10 billion will have to be spent each year to fight the disease around the world.

Thompson, who is attending the annual ministerial meeting of the World Health Organization in Geneva, also said the disease has become the number one foreign affairs issue with which Secretary of State Colin Powell has to deal.

Major developing countries, led by South Africa and Brazil, have blamed successive U.S. administrations and international drug companies, for hindering access to life saving drugs at affordable prices. They have propelled the issue center stage in major U.N. forums and at the World Trade Organization.

Last month 39 major pharmaceutical companies challenged a law in South Africa that allows the government to import anti-AIDS drugs at cheap prices.

But later the drug companies said they had reached an out of court settlement with the South African government.

However, South Africa's health minister, Manto Tshablala-Msimang, told the WHO meeting that South Africa's fight with the drug countries was about access to all life-saving drugs and not just those for AIDS.

South Africa's firm stance, and the worldwide outcry it triggered against major pharmaceutical companies, helped set in motion sharp price cuts.

Speaking to reporters, Thompson said he believed the drug companies were "going to be very aggressive in reducing prices for their products in Africa. "You're going to see a lot more announcements coming forth in the near future," said Thompson.

He said he had "received a lot of assurances from pharmaceutical companies that they are going to be very helpful."

However, he said "the Bush administration is not going to go against the intellectual property rights and patents because they are the guarantees for future research, for future drugs that could cure a lot of incurable diseases ... Those patents give the pharmaceutical companies the ability to do that."

Thompson told WHO delegates the United States would provide $200 million to the global effort on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, in addition to the $450 million already committed. He said the U.S. administration was also giving $2.5 billion to the National Institute of Health for HIV/AIDS research, including $397 million to find a vaccine.

But Asia Russell of the Philadelphia-based Health GAP Coalition said the U.S. contributions to the global health fund were too small. The coalition wants the United States to contribute at least $2 billion, with other major industrial powers and multilateral agencies providing an additional $6 billion, and the balance by donations from foundations and private sources.
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