Top UN health official urges treatment for AIDS patients in Africa

The senior United Nations health official today made an impassioned plea for urgent treatment for AIDS patients in Africa, where more than 30 million people are now HIV-positive.

Dr. Lee Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), proposed a response strategy called "3 by 5" which aims to provide 3 million people living with AIDS with antiretroviral medicines by the end of 2005.

African countries must be major partners in this effort, he said. "Overall success will require the commitment of civil society, United Nations agencies, the private sector and Member States."

In an address to WHO's African Regional Committee, he also called for improved maternal care, stressing the need to ensure that women can give birth safely. "Protection during pregnancy, childbearing and motherhood forms the core of the health system," he said.

In addition, Dr. Lee drew attention to the plight of the young, noting that 10 million children in low- and middle-income countries die every year before reaching the age of five, including 7 million who succumb to preventable and treatable conditions like pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles and malnutrition. He called malaria – which takes the lives of 3,000 children in Africa each day – a "titanic health problem."

In a separate development, WHO today welcomed the consensus reached by Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on access to medicines by countries with insufficient capacity for pharmaceutical production. The agency said the agreement would help the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

"Given the urgency of the health needs in the poorest countries, the work to implement this agreement must proceed as quickly as possible," WHO said, pledging to help qualifying countries achieve the full public health benefit from the lower prices.