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 three-day workshop 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 95 kilometres 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, four 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.
Serious illness is a major reason why poor populations remain trapped in poverty.
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. May. Click Here to make suggestions, comments about C-Health.