PHM-Exch> [PHM News]: WHO Executive Board (EB134) in Jan 2014 considering Antimicrobial Resistance

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: [PHMs WHO Watch]



The WHO Executive Board will review progress in dealing with anti-microbial
resistance (AMR) at its January 2014 meeting as Agenda item 10.6 (and
presumably it will be considered again in May 2014 at the WHA).

In introducing the item the Secretariat comments on the threat posed by
growing antimicrobial drug resistance to the long-term sustainability of
the public health control of many infectious diseases, and the substantial
related health-economic and economic costs. The Secretariat provides an
outline of the current situation, the response, and the need for further
global action.

The report provided by the Secretariat (Document
EB134/37<http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB134/B134_37-en.pdf>)
reviews the global situation and the current response to the challenge of
AMR. It emphasises the need for global action and explores ‘next steps’
focusing on intersectoral engagement, national plans, knowledge and
information, medicines regulation, prevention of infection, technology
innovation and service innovation.

It is noteworthy that the report identifies ‘counterfeit’ medicines as part
of the problem but does not mention the use of monopoly pricing (associated
with extreme IP protection) to support aggressive marketing of antibiotics
to prescribers and consumers.

PHM <http://www.phmovement.org/>’s WHO Watch
project<http://www.ghwatch.org/who-watch/>will be at the EB and the
WHA and we are presently preparing comments to be
shared with delegates before and during the meetings.  We would be very
keen to hear  the views of PHM activists and friends on the Secretariat
report and suggestions about how WHO could be more effective in this area.

Please respond to: medicines-watch at phmovement.org.

Warmest greetings

WHO Watch
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20131215/0e797284/attachment.html>