PHA-Exchange> UN AGENCIES PRESENT PLAN TO BRING ESSENTIAL MEDICINES TO CHILDREN

[Claudio]

From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern at coombs.anu.edu.au>
From: UNNews at un.org

UN AGENCIES PRESENT PLAN TO BRING ESSENTIAL MEDICINES TO CHILDREN
New York, Aug 14 2006  6:00PM
With millions of children dying every year from treatable diseases, United 
Nations agencies have
devised a plan aimed at increasing children’s access to essential 
medications.

The World Health Organization
(<"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr42/en/index.html">WHO) 
and the United Nations
Children’s Fund (<"http://www.unicef.org/">UNICEF) held a joint meeting in 
Geneva last week, where
experts formed a strategy to expand access to child-focused formulations and 
improve the medicines
and prescribing guidelines for the entire range of infant and child care 
needs.

"Children are often hailed as the hope and future of humanity, but they 
don't benefit enough from
pharmaceutical research and technology," said Dr Howard Zucker, 
Assistant-Director General at the
World Health Organization (WHO).

Some 10 million children die every year, many of them from diarrhoea, 
HIV/AIDS, malaria, respiratory
tract infection or pneumonia. Effective treatments for these illnesses 
exist, but there is a lack of
knowledge of how best to use such medicines in children, as well as a lack 
of paediatric formulations.

Under the plan, UNICEF’s supply division said it would work with industry to 
promote the development
of paediatric formulations for HIV/AIDS medications. It also promised to 
work towards painless
remedies, better-tasting medications and new mini-tablets to treat other 
diseases, as well as to
emphasize the importance of climate zone considerations in creating and 
distributing new formulations.

The WHO’s Director for Medicines Policy and Standards, Hans Hogerzeil, said 
the agency would work
towards ameliorating the cost of many medicines, especially “for children in 
resource-poor settings
where there is enormous need.”