EU adopts 400-million euro plan to combat worldwide diseases

SAPA

The European Union Tuesday adopted a 400-million euro programme to combat diseases linked to grinding poverty worldwide such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

The money, agreed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, includes 74-million euros to promote reproductive and sexual health in developing countries.

Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Loverdos said the funds would make a real difference.

They will help save thousands of lives by improving maternal health and by helping in the fight against poverty diseases in some of the world's poorest countries, he said.

The EU is acting in support of United Nations goals to alleviate poverty and disease in the developing world.

The goals include halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases by 2015, and cutting the mortality rate for mothers by three-quarters by the same year.

The EU plans next week to adopt a regulation aimed at encouraging pharmaceutical giants to offer drugs combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis at reduced prices to the world's poorest countries.

The accord has been held up by concerns among EU governments that the cheap drugs could be re-imported back into the EU, undercutting the profits of European pharmaceutical companies. (Source: SAPA-AFP, 20 May 2003)