6.9.2003 Official Journal of the European Union L 224[7 REGULATION (EC) No 1568/2003 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 15 July 2003 on aid to fight poverty diseases (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria) in developing countries THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 179 thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission (!), Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty (3), Whereas: 1 The right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is a fundamental human right which is in line with the provisions of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right is being denied to over a fifth of the world's population. Article 35 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union calls for a high level of human health protection in the definition and implementation of all Union policies and activities. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria cause the deaths of more than five and a half million people each year, their greatest impact being on morbidity and life expectancy in developing countries. Moreover, these diseases wipe out years of development efforts and achievements and constitute a serious concern in the long run because of their destabilising effects on society. It is now widely accepted that prevention, care and treat- ment are mutually dependent and synergistic. The failure to reduce the burden of these diseases and the evidence of their increasing impact have brought them to the centre of the development debate — as evidenced by the Declaration of Commitment of the Special Session of the UN General Assembly of June 2001, which recognises that HIV/AIDS has evolved to become a developmental emergency, and by the WHO World Health Assembly's declaration of tuberculosis and malaria as global emergencies — and have led to calls for urgent action and a series of national, regional and international initiatives, all meant to achieve the Millen- nium Development Goals which include clear targets to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and to which the European Community and its Member States committed themselves. () O] C 151 E, 25.6.2002, p. 202. (*) Opinion of the European Parliament of 30 January 2003 (not yet published in the Official Journal) and Decision of the Council of 16 June 2003. (6) The abovementioned UN Declaration of Commitment agreed, for HIV/AIDS alone, to reach by 2005 through a series of incremental steps an overall target of annual expenditure on the epidemic of between USD 7 and 10 thousand million in low and middle-income countries and countries experiencing or at risk of experiencing a rapid spread of the disease, for prevention, care, treat- ment, support and mitigation of the impact of HIV/ AIDS, and to take measures to ensure that the resources needed are made available, particularly from donor countries and also from national budgets, bearing in mind that resources of the most affected countries are seriously limited. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria require an appro- priate structural response, which is both comprehensive and coherent and which is beyond the financial and human resources of most developing countries. Because of their magnitude and cross-boundary nature, the poverty diseases are among the problems that require a systematic, coordinated response by the international community. Interventions in this area are in everyone's interest and therefore should not be viewed as a question of development aid alone. The Doha Declaration on the Agreement on trade- related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPs) and Public Health affirmed that ‘the TRIPs Agreement does not and should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public health’ and that it ‘can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all’ and reaffirmed ‘the right of WTO members to use, to the full, the provisions in the TRIPs Agreement which provide flexibility for this purpose’. The effectiveness of programmes to support national strategies to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria partly depends on the improved coordination of aid at both the European and the international level, notably with UN agencies, funds and programmes, including partnerships between the private, public and voluntary sectors, and on the use of procedures tailored to the specific nature of the strategies and partners concerned.