UN Secretary-General meets with pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies
The United Nations Secretary-General and UN officials met with senior executives in New York on 9 October 2008 to review progress on strengthening efforts to expand access to HIV services in low- and middle-income countries.
This event took place shortly after the high level meeting on the Millennium Development Goals and is a follow-up to the last high-level dialogue between the United Nations and pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies which took place in July 2006.
Participants agreed that increasing access to vaccines, diagnostics and medicines is essential for scaling up prevention and treatment efforts.
Advances made since 2006 were recognized, including further investment in development of technologies for diagnosis of HIV and for monitoring the efficacy of antiviral treatment in adults and children; and new initiatives on laboratory strengthening. Progress in updating the WHO guidelines on HIV diagnosis and the strengthening of the WHO prequalification programme were also noted.
Despite the achievements made, the HIV epidemic continues to surpass efforts and there is still more work to do. The Secretary-General pointed out the need for greater collaboration between the private sector and the United Nations to increase efforts with respect to Goal 8 of the Millennium Development Goals, on building a global partnership for development. It was agreed to continue to hold high-level meetings to review progress made and to identify new collaborative measures.