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Affordable Medicine for Poor Sought By: Associated Press Oslo, Norway - Millions of people a year die of treatable diseases because they can't afford the medicine, a problem international experts will address at a workshop starting Monday in Norway. Some 80 representatives of the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, drug companies and other researchers and health experts were to seek ways to ensure that drugs are sold at affordable prices and that they get to those who need them. ``The main goal is to map conditions that today prevent developing countries' access to needed medicines on reasonable terms,'' Norwegian Minister of Development Aid Anne Kristin Sydnes said ahead of the meeting. ``In Africa alone, 25 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS.'' The pharmaceutical industry has come under international pressure in recent years over the price of its patented drugs -- especially treatments for HIV/AIDS -- in developing countries. The three-day workshop, called ``Differential Pricing and Financing of Essential Drugs,'' will be closed to the public and news media. The delegates cannot make binding decisions, only suggest approaches. The meeting, which was being held near the town of Hamar, about 60 miles north of the capital, Oslo, was organized by the Global Health Council, a U.S. non-governmental organization. According to a WHO background paper for the workshop, 4 million lives a year could be saved by prompt diagnosis and treatment, and two-thirds of all children who die before age 15 are killed by seven treatable diseases. `Put simply, people are dying because the drugs they need are not available to them,'' the paper said. ``Serious illness is a major reason why poor populations remain trapped in poverty.'' Many major pharmaceutical groups have recently slashed prices, sometimes under cost, to provide HIV/AIDS medication that few African countries could previously afford, but relief agencies say they could be doing more. In general, the industry says it needs high revenues from medicines to fund research and some critics have said governments need to respond by improving the infrastructure to distribute drugs. Delegates to the conference also face a formidable challenges in such matters as even defining which countries are poor enough to receive cheap medication. The WHO report said, depending on criteria, anywhere from 33 countries with 654 million people to 78 countries with 2.3 billion people might qualify. Other topics include which diseases and drugs should be covered, how to cut the cost of drugs for poor countries, how to prevent cheap medicines from leaking back to rich countries from poor ones, how much money is needed to provide the medicine and how that could be financed. According to one study, $10 billion is needed to combat diseases in Africa alone. Organizers planned to issue a statement at the end of the meeting and publish fuller reports in May.
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