2000 WHA on HIV/AIDS: confronting the epidemic

53rd WHA
2000-05-20

Res­o­lu­tion 53.14

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Analysis of precedential value

The World Health Assem­bly (WHA) is the deci­sion-mak­ing body of the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion. It includes del­e­ga­tions from every UN mem­ber state, which gather annu­ally to address ques­tions about WHO’s gov­er­nance, bud­get, and progress. Although WHA res­o­lu­tions are cen­tred on health, they engage top­ics rang­ing from mil­i­tary aggres­sion to migrant rights.

Used as precedent

access to health products

• “Urges Mem­ber States to ensure that blood trans­fu­sion ser­vices do not con­sti­tute an HIV risk fac­tor by ensur­ing that all indi­vid­u­als have access to safe blood and blood prod­ucts that are acces­si­ble and ade­quate to meet their needs, are obtained from vol­un­tary, non­re­mu­ner­ated blood donors, are trans­fused only when nec­es­sary, and are pro­vided as part of a sus­tain­able blood trans­fu­sion pro­gramme within the exist­ing health care sys­tem.” (para­graph 1(7))

• “Urges Mem­ber states to increase access to treat­ment and pro­phy­laxis of HIV-related ill­nesses through mea­sures such as ensur­ing the pro­vi­sion and afford­abil­ity of drugs, includ­ing a reli­able dis­tri­bu­tion and deliv­ery sys­tem; imple­men­ta­tion of a strong generic drug pol­icy; bulk pur­chas­ing; nego­ti­a­tion with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies; appro­pri­ate financ­ing sys­tems; and encour­age­ment of local man­u­fac­tur­ing and import prac­tices con­sis­tent with national laws and inter­na­tional agree­ments acceded to.” (para­graph 1(16))

harm reduction

• “Urges States to estab­lish or to expand coun­sell­ing ser­vices and vol­un­tary con­fi­den­tial HIV-test­ing in order to encour­age health-seek­ing behav­iour and to act as an entry point for pre­ven­tion and care.” (para­graph 1(18))

• “Urges States to con­tinue research on the pre­ven­tion of mother-to-child trans­mis­sion of HIV and to inte­grate inter­ven­tions for it into pri­mary health care, includ­ing repro­duc­tive health ser­vices, as part of com­pre­hen­sive care for HIV-infected preg­nant women and post­na­tal fol­low-up for them and for their fam­i­lies, ensur­ing that such research is free from inter­ests that might bias the results and that com­mer­cial involve­ment should be clearly dis­closed.” (para­graph 1(19))

positive legal determinants

• “Urges Mem­ber States to estab­lish pro­grammes to com­bat poverty with the sup­port of donors, imple­ment them in a rig­or­ous and trans­par­ent man­ner, and advo­cate: can­cel­la­tion of debt in order to free resources for, inter alia, HIV/AIDS pre­ven­tion and care, as pro­posed by the G8 Sum­mit at Cologne, improve­ment of the liv­ing con­di­tions of pop­u­la­tions, reduc­tion of unem­ploy­ment, improve­ment of the stan­dard of pub­lic health.” (para­graph 1(2))