A/HRC/7/30 page 2 Summary Almost 2 billion people have inadequate or no access to life-saving medicines; 80 per cent of these people live in developing countries where inadequate supplies of medicines prevent the enjoyment of the right to the highest attainable standard of health.1 In 2007, 33.2 million people were living with HIV out of which 2.5 million people were newly infected. Every day, 5,700 people die from AIDS, primarily due to inadequate access to HIV prevention and treatment services.2 Of the total estimated number of deaths due to AIDS, 76 per cent occurred in sub-Saharan Africa where AIDS remains the leading cause of death. In 2006 the General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS reaffirmed the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and issued a Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, annexed to Assembly resolution 60/262. In the Declaration, Member States recognized that HIV/AIDS constitutes a global emergency and poses one of the most formidable challenges to development, where progress requires an exceptional and comprehensive global response as recognized in the Millennium Development Goals. Although preventable and curable, malaria causes more than 1 million deaths per year worldwide. The Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health has often referred to malaria as a neglected or “poverty-related” disease. The NGO Malaria Consortium notes: “Whilst the disease is in large part determined mainly by climate and ecology, and not poverty per se, the impact of malaria takes its toll on the poorest - those least able to afford preventative measures and medical treatment. The impact of malaria is not only felt in terms of the human suffering and death it causes but also by the significant economic cost and burden.”3 Tuberculosis is also a neglected disease and a major cause of death worldwide, particularly among persons living in poverty. There were an estimated 8.8 million new cases in 2005, out of which 7.4 million were in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, the World Health Organization (WHO) received notification that 26.5 million patients had tuberculosis between 1995 and 2005. A total of 1.6 million people died of tuberculosis, out of which approximately 12 per cent were persons living with HIV.4 1 WHO Medicines Strategy: Countries at the Core, WHO, 2004, http://whqlibdoc.who.int/ hq/2004/WHO_EDM_2004.5.pdf; WHO World Medicines Situation, WHO, 2004, http://www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/Reports_World_Medicines_Situation.pdf; UNAIDS, 2006 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. 2 UNAIDS, 2007 AIDS Epidemic Update. 3 Neglected diseases: A human rights analysis, Paul Hunt, WHO, 2007, and www.malariaconsortium.org/data/files/human_rights_malaria_final.pdf. 4 WHO Report 2007, “Global tuberculosis control - surveillance, planning, financing”, WHO/HTM/TB/2007.376.