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11 May 2006 : Column 194WH—continued
I hope that all hon. Members have had the chance to see the European Union’s statement on world AIDS day, which sought to refocus attention on the importance of prevention. We were responsible for its drafting, and I commend it to hon. Members as an example of the type of comprehensive response that is necessary. We hope that the UN General Assembly special session that starts at the end of this month will endorse a full and comprehensive response. In particular, we hope that it will endorse ambitious country-led plans and support the belief that no
effective, properly audited, ambitious country-led plan should remain unfinanced. That is why raising further funds is so important.
The chairmen of the all-party group on population, development and reproductive health and the all-party group on AIDS and, my hon. Friends the Members for Calder Valley and for Walthamstow, will join my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley, who has responsibility for public health, and representatives from four UK NGOs, including several people who are living with HIV, in that delegation.
I shall bring to the Secretary of State’s attention the specific point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for
Northampton, North about groups that have focused on the problems about resources getting down to community level.
I am conscious that I have not answered hon. Members’ questions about antiretroviral drugs and the relationship with pharmaceutical companies. I will write to hon. Members who have participated in this debate to let them know our approach to engaging more with those companies. Both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I meet such companies on a regular basis and encourage them to do more in terms of differential pricing. It is not quite as bleak a picture as many have suggested. I shall write on other points too.
It being half-past Five o’clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.
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