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Earth Summit Agrees Health
Care Is Human Right

9-4-2

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Earth Summit negotiators agreed that a World Trade Organization treaty on patents should not prevent poor countries from providing medicines for all, a key issue for those that cannot afford costly AIDS drugs.
 
They also agreed that access to health care should be consistent with basic human rights as well as religious and cultural values, a measure that humans rights groups said enshrined women's rights to reproductive health care.
 
Following are details of problems, progress and priorities:
 
AIDS
 
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) was first reported in 1981 among homosexual men in the United States and has since claimed about 22 million lives, almost 15 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
 
More than 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, most of them in developing nations. The United Nations reckons that AIDS will kill 70 million people over the next 20 years unless rich nations step up efforts to curb the disease.
 
South Africa has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other country, with about one in nine of the 45 million population infected. Botswana is hardest hit, with more than one in three of its citizens infected with HIV/AIDS.
 
Six percent of all children in Africa are likely to be orphaned by AIDS by 2010. Drugs to treat the disease are often too costly for developing nations.
 
Some developing nations are making progress against AIDS--Uganda reduced the prevalence of AIDS to about 8% from 14% in the past decade, according to UNAIDS.
 
OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS
 
Almost 800 million people in developing countries are not getting enough food to lead a healthy life.
 
Eleven million children in developing nations die before the age of five. About 70% are killed by diarrheal diseases, malaria, respiratory infections, measles or malnutrition.
 
Every year, about 8.8 million people get active tuberculosis and 1.7 million of them die, mostly in poor nations. By 2020, 35 million may die of tuberculosis unless prevention is stepped up.
 
Malaria kills one million people a year, mostly children in Africa. The World Health Organization reckons Africa's annual gross domestic product would be $100 billion higher if malaria had been tackled more aggressively 30 years ago.
 
Between five and six million people a year die in developing nations from water-borne diseases and air pollution.
 
PROGRESS
 
Life expectancy has improved for the planet's six billion people to 66.4 years in 1995-2000 from 59.9 in the early 1970s. Between 1970 and 2000, deaths among children under five worldwide fell to 56 per 1,000 live births, down from 96.
 
Since 1990, 800 million people have gained access to better water supplies. Hunger has fallen in some nations but at current sluggish rates it would take more than 130 years to eliminate.
 
One study by a panel commissioned by the World Health Organization showed well-targeted spending of $66 billion a year by 2015 could save eight million lives a year and generate economic benefits of $360 billion a year by 2020.
 
FEMALE CIRCUMCISION
 
Women's health emerged as an unexpected hurdle at the summit as campaigners battled over words they said pitched cultural practices like female circumcision against abortion rights.
 
In a last-minute addition to the action plan, countries pledged to "strengthen the capacity of healthcare systems to deliver basic health services to all...in conformity with human rights and fundamental freedoms and consistent with national laws and cultural and religious values."
 
Female circumcision is performed in 28 African countries, some countries in the Middle East and also in immigrant communities in other parts of the world.
 
The process of cutting a young girl's clitoris is viewed as ensuring chastity or enhancing beauty and in some cultures is deemed necessary for a girl to become a woman. It is usually so violent it has become known as female genital mutilation (FGM).
 
London-based human rights group Amnesty International estimates 135 million women have undergone FGM and roughly two million girls are at risk every year, or 6,000 each day.
 
Activists argue that unless health is linked to human rights women would be at greater risk from diseases such as HIV/AIDS as governments could make decisions on issues like contraception on religious or cultural grounds.
 
 
Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.






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