The World Health Organization has passed a resolution urging richer countries to help poorer countries have better access to HIV/AIDS drugs, Health Minister Hong Sun Huot said Monday upon his return from Geneva.
The resolution also calls on member nations to promote the development of cheap, easily available drugs to treat other infectious illnesses that afflict mostly poor people, said Hong Sun Huot, who chaired the congress in Geneva last week.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an address to the congress, said AIDS and diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria “blight the prospects of many developing countries,” according to a press release from WHO’s Phnom Penh office. Annan outlined a plan for a multibillion-dollar agency to combat the spread of infectious diseases in poor countries.
The congress also resolved to help improve mental health care in poor countries, Hong Sun Huot said. Currently, there is almost no mental health care available in Cambodia.
The meeting was the first to be chaired by a Cambodian official since 1953, Hong Sun Huot said. “I’m very proud,” he said, noting that the Cambodian flag now flies next to the WHO flag at the Geneva offices.