WRITTEN QUESTION E-0744/01

by François Bayrou (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(9 March 2001)

Subject: European Development Fund and health policy

Given the new ACP-EU agreements signed in Cotonou on 23 June 2000, the funds available under the Ninth EDF ( 13 800 million) and, finally, the resolution adopted at the most recent meeting of the Development Council on 10 November 2000 on transmissible diseases and poverty, it appears incontrovertible that the Commission and Council constantly renew the support given by the European Union and its Member States to the ACP States, with particular regard to public health policy.

Accordingly, would the Commission please indicate the funds made available to certain organisations renowned for their campaigns against handicaps such as blindness (Institute for Tropical Ophthalmology in Africa IOTA which has its headquarters in Bamako, Mali) following the dissolution in particular of the Cooperation and Coordination Organisation for the Control of the Major Endemic Diseases, in the knowledge that funds must be made available for campaigns to treat transmissible diseases such as AIDS but that such funds must not be provided at the expense of the campaigns against the major endemic diseases which are, unfortunately, still present in a large number of African countries?

Answer given by Mr Nielson on behalf of the Commission

(16 May 2001)

The Commission recognises the importance of maintaining a high level of support to public health policy in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. Commitment to health remains high, and the Commission has included the fight against poverty with a particular focus on health and education among its priorities for 2002. The Commission anticipates that many ACP states will define health as a priority area during the programming of 9th European development fund (EDF) funds.

The Commission accepts that accelerated action against the major communicable diseases, including human immuno-deficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), must not be at the expense of work on health policy and endemic diseases, particularly within Africa. Most Community funding for health, AIDS and population supports national efforts to strengthen health systems and will continue to do so.

The Community funds various initiatives related to communicable diseases and their resulting disability. The Commission supports the Onchocerciasis Control Programme and the Programme of Support to the Fight Against Blindness. The latter programme includes support to the reorganisation of the Institute of Tropical Ophthalmology (IOTA) as an autonomous organisation attached to the

Ministry of Health of Mali. The Commission views the merging of the IOTA's parent organisation, the OCCGE (Organisation de Contrôle des Grandes Endémies), with its anglophone equivalent to create the West-African Health Organisation (WAHO) as a rational approach. The Community also supports approaches that aim to strengthen regional public health co-operation. Examples in West Africa include the ARIVA project (promoting immunisation independence in ten countries); the APPA project (strengthening pharmaceutical policy in 22 countries); and ASURE (support for the West African Epidemiological Surveillance Network). The Commission anticipates that such regional support will continue to be provided under the 9th EDF.