Agreement on access to medicines for children with HIV (February 27, 2013)
Sudan – Court ordered amputation
Agreement on access to medicines for children with HIV (February 27, 2013)
Providing the populations of the poorest countries with access to quality medicines is an important component of French development policy. France has, from the outset, supported the Medicines Patent Pool initiative launched by UNITAID.
UNITAID funds programs to improve access to healthcare products (treatments, diagnostic tests and prevention tools) against 3 major pandemics: HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. France is the leading contributor to UNITAID, which it supports thanks to funding from taxes on airline tickets, an innovative financing for development instrument.
The Medicines Patent Pool initiative announced the signing on February 27, 2013, of an agreement with the laboratory, ViiV Healthcare, aimed at ensuring the availability of generic versions of anti-retroviral medicines for children infected with HIV at affordable prices.
ViiV Healthcare is the second pharmaceutical group after Gilead Sciences Inc. to join the Medicines Patent Pool initiative which aims to facilitate the swift delivery of the most recent generic anti-retroviral medicines to developing countries thanks to the voluntary licensing of their patents.
France welcomes this agreement and reaffirms the need for ViiV Healthcare to extend the agreement to anti-retroviral medicines for adults, and for other laboratories that hold patents for HIV/AIDS drugs to adopt a similar approach.
Sudan – Court ordered amputation
France strongly condemns the enforcement in Sudan on February 14 of a double amputation sentence. This barbaric practice is contrary to international human rights standards and to Sudan’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which Sudan has ratified.
We remain concerned by the human rights situation in Sudan. France urges the Sudanese authorities to put an end to the practice of amputation and to ratify without delay the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, signed by Sudan in 1986.