Wednesday 23rd, MAY 2007

Committee A

The draft fifth report of Committee A is examined. The draft document A60/61 contains seven resolutions that are entitled: 12.14 Health systems: emergency-care systems, 12.8 Prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases: implementation of the global strategy, 12.11 Health promotion in a globalized world, 12.12 Integrating gender analysis and actions into the work of WHO: draft strategy, 12.13 Workers’ health: draft global plan of action, 12.15 Strengthening of health information systems, 12.1 Pandemic influenza preparedness: sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits.
This draft is adopted.

Item 12.7 on Evidence-based strategies and interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm is discussed. Doctor Blumfield’s stated that there was a great interest on the topic as there were 5 changes of the resolution through the amendments. Although there was no sufficient time to work through the paper, the members showed flexibility and good will to write a short paper to work on, which was conference paper 15. But consensus remained hard to reach. Few corrections are made according to what has been agreed on. Resolution will be submitted to the Executive Board. The delegate representative of Cuba said that some changes of the working group had not been taken into account by the Doctor Chairman of the working group. According to the Chairman, the Executive Board will be studying the issue. Brazil reminds that this issue is very important and expresses its will to act immediately. Be more dynamic on this topic that cannot wait longer. Progress has to be made in Sweden’s view, and the conference paper 15.1 doesn’t reflect their will anymore, they propose the reintroduction of paper 10. Cuba finally agrees with paper 15.1 going to the EB. The DGO proposed its version; there were no objections to it.

Work of the 60th World Health Assembly is ending today. The Chairman thanks all the members for their contributions to the debates of this Committee, for the solidarity and collaboration between the member states during the assembly which helped to enhance the work of the World Health Assembly. Thanks were expressed to Director General Mrs Chan, the representatives of the secretariat, the vice presidents, and the “rapporteur” for their support, who were very professional. Interpreters and translators were very useful as well for the communication between member states, thanks to them.
Delegate of Senegal’s had the last word. He expressed his admiration for the way the work has been achieved. According to him courtesy, patience, constancy and a sense of compromise were present through the Committee. And the Chairman was specifically thanked for his work by the Senegalese delegate as he represented Madagascar and the African Region.
Therefore a very good overall impression had emerged from the work of the fourteenth meetings of Committee B during the WHA.







COMMITTEE B

Draft fourth report of Committee B
Document (draft) A60/62, containing one resolution entitled:
Health technologies
After a consultation of the assembly, no opposition was expressed to the adoption then declared by the Chairperson of the committee.

Item 12 (continued) Technical and health matters
Item 12.20 (continued) Public health, innovation and intellectual property: progress made by the Intergovernmental Working Group
Documents A60/27 and A60/B/Conf.Paper No.3 Rev.2

The Distinguished Delegate of Namibia presented the result of the work of the drafting group on the issue of Public health, innovation and intellectual property. He congratulated his co-workers in the draft group underlying the fact that the strength of such a group came from its diversity. He concluded by underlying the remaining sentence in brackets from line 3 to line 5 in paragraph 3 of operative clauses.
The efforts of the D.D. of Namibia were also thanked by the Chairperson.

The floor was then opened to comments and discussion. The D.D. of the U.S.A. took first the floor saying that his delegation was ready to make consensus provided certain changes in the text of the draft resolution. The D.D. of the U.S.A. proposed in fact several modifications:

• Preamble part of the draft resolution: change proposed in §2 (expression "diagnostic tools" on line 2 should be removed, becoming: "diagnostic TRIPS"). Such proposal received the support of the Australian Delegation.
• Operative clauses: §2 (second line, the expression "continue to" should precede the end of the sentence; "and continue to provide adequate resources to WHO"), §3.4 (a reformulation of the whole sentence is proposed). This last proposal was supported by the D.D. of Japan saying that the Delegation of Japan could not accept the statement in brackets.

The changes proposed by the American Delegation raised the opposition of several states among which were: Brazil, Chile, Kenya on behalf of the 46 African States, Thailand. The Delegation of Switzerland proposed to replace §3.4 in the text and to underlying that a compromise was reached yesterday. The Delegation has previously stated that the drat resolution, a very important and complex text was the result of a hazardous process and he added that the efforts done should not be underscored. According to his Delegation, the proposal from the D.D. of the U.S.A. can improve the reading of the text but are absolutely different from the draft document. He asked for a withdrawal of U.S.A.'s proposal.

Finally, as no agreement seemed to be reach between the two different positions the Chairman proposed to adopt the draft resolution as it was including the change on §2 of preamble. The D.D. of the U.S.A. declared that his Delegation reserved itself the right to express its opposition during the plenary.

The Resolution was adopted.

Draft fifth report of Committee B
The draft report was adopted without any comment or opposition in the committee.

Plenary Session

Item 8 : the draft reports of Committtee A (3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th) were adopted. Reports of Committee B (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th) were adopted.

However the US delegation declared that it couldn’t accepte the resolution contained in the 5th report of committee B : Public health, innovation and intellectual property as announced, as it cannot be considered as a consensus text. However the US did not intend to block to process.

In the closing Item, Dr. Robinson, chairman of Committe A took the floor to thank the delagations fir the good work accomplished during this 60th WHA. He particularly noted the constructive atmosphere in the dabate. His committe adopted 15 resolutions. 2 on the strategic medium plan and 13 on technical and healt issues. Only 2 working group were needed to discuss the draft reports. Dr. Robinson congratulate the Presidency and the DG Margaret Chan for her first WHA as director general.

Thomas Zeltner, the president of Committee B and swiss secretary of state for Public health, adresses the audience to acknoledge the work of the Assembly. He precised, that depite the comments, there is not yet a complete ban for smoking in public places in Switzerland, but a poposal is submitted to the Parliament and shall be submitted to approval. M. Zeltner said that his committee has been very effiecient and that its rapid work allowed to transfert some items from committee A. He thanked all delegations and the work of the Secretariat, the presidency, WHO staff and DG Dr. Chan.