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12:34 GMT 15:34 Moscow
Local Time: 15:34
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The problem |
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G8 response |
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Russia's position and role |
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Opinions |
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G8 Response
This problem, along with other social issues, made its way up the G8 agenda as soon as infectious diseases were recognized as a factor of global economic security. Leading powers understood that their own economic security heavily depends on the development of other countries, and that encouraging their progress and promoting internationally health care programs focused on the most acute problems of today’s world are a precondition of sustainable development.
The first mention of infectious diseases as an international concern came when what is today G8 was G7. In the final document of its 1987 summit in Venice, the G7 spoke of AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes it. AIDS was again brought to the G7 agenda of the Paris’89 meeting that resulted in an international anti-AIDS accord.
The 1990s saw increasing G8 attention paid to health care, particularly at Lyon’96 and Denver’97 meetings. At that point, the G8 spoke of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria as a global threat and was looking at ways to ensure more efficient cooperation on infectious diseases: surveillance, prevention, medicine and vaccine research.
By the turn of the 21st century, the G8 seemed to have fit infectious diseases firmly in its schedule: at the Okinawa 2000 meeting, the leaders focused on the need to pool global efforts to fight infections, saying in the final communiqué, “Health is key to prosperity... Infectious and parasitic diseases, most notably HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, as well as childhood diseases and common infections, threaten to reverse decades of development and to rob an entire generation of hope for a better future.” Since then, this topic has been high on the agenda of every G8 meeting and resulted in some major G8-sponsored initiatives aimed at a global anti-infection effort:
- Genoa 2001 – the G8 creates the $6.5-billion Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria (GFATM)
- Kananaskis 2002 – G8 member states allocate $160 million in anti-poliomyelitis commitments
- Evian 2003 – the G8 commits to “improve access to health care, including to drugs and treatments at affordable prices, in poor countries”
- Sea Island 2004 sees G8 action to endorse and establish a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise
- Gleneagles 2005 results in an Africa Action Plan, which includes extensive efforts against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
The leaders have continually drawn support for leading international anti-infection institutions such as the World Health Organization and UNAIDS and promote search for better ways to cooperate against infectious diseases and help developing countries tackle the threat they pose.
By now, the G8 position has evolved into a set of important anti-infection priorities:
- promotion of institutional health care development;
- support for medicine and vaccine research and production;
- support for equal access to diagnostic, prevention, and treatment facilities;
- support for global programs fighting infectious diseases;
- promotion of intranational cooperation – notably between public, private, and civic institutions – to fight infectious diseases.
Unfortunately, for all the efforts made and planned, international community is still far from the point where infectious diseases are controllable and no longer pose a threat to the progress of mankind, and where every country can give its citizens access to the diagnostics, prevention, and treatment of diseases.
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