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EC refuses to add to AIDS fund
PARIS, France -- The EC's decision not to raise its contribution to a Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, after U.S. President George Bush announced a $15 billion donation, has been met with disappointment by campaigners. Board members of the Global Fund had hoped the European Commission would respond to Bush's multi-billion dollar pledge to fight AIDS over five years. But the EC made it clear this week that it would not be putting new cash on the table, Reuters reported. Diplomatic sources said Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands remained skeptical about the fund and had blocked increased EU funding. Washington and Brussels both claim to be out spending each other, with the United States the biggest single donor to the Global Fund while the European Union and its member states together are providing 55 percent of total pledges. Only Ireland announced at an AIDS conference Wednesday in Paris that it was increasing its pledge for 2004 by 7.1 euros ($7.9 million). French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had urged other leaders to promise up to $1 billion. The Global Fund, which has committed $1.5 billion to programmes in 92 countries in the last 18 months, faces a lack of money for schemes at its next round of funding in October. It faces a shortfall of $400 million in 2003 -- after about $800 million after projects were expected to be turned down. Executive director Richard Feachem said: "Over the months ahead we have to make further steps forward. The aim is to raise the cruising altitude ... which is $7 billion a year to be achieved by 2007 and to get to that cruising altitude it's important to keep up the pace." The organization currently has pledges of $4.7 billion up to 2007. The fund was created early 2002 at the urging of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Also discussed at the Paris conference, the biggest annual AIDS conference, was a survey which showed the virus' resistance to drugs. One in 10 HIV patients in Europe who become infected with the virus that causes AIDS is infected with drug- resistant strains, Dutch researchers found. Experts said the biggest study of its kind showed the need for patients to adhere strictly to drug regimens and for companies to develop a constant stream of new medicines to keep AIDS at bay. David van de Vijver of University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands, said the scale of the problem in Europe was a concern. "The conclusion of our study is that 10 percent of newly diagnosed patients in Europe are infected with a virus that contains resistance to at least one antiretroviral drug," he told reporters. The study, conducted by Van de Vijver and colleagues and covering 1,633 patients from 17 European countries, also found that 1.7 percent of new patients were resistant to two or more antiretrovirals. There are currently 19 separate anti-HIV drugs on the market, falling into three main classes: nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors. Van de Vijver said resistance was found to the first class in 6.9 percent of the European patient group, resistance to the second class in 2.6 percent and resistance to protease inhibitors in 2.2 percent.
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