GENEVA, May 18 (Reuters Health) - The World Health Organization (WHO) is expected Monday to adopt a resolution on "Scaling up the response to HIV/AIDS," which was accepted by a World Health Assembly committee Friday.

The acceptance came after debate over a draft resolution, tabled by Brazil, dominated the World Health Assembly on Thursday

The proposals by the Brazilian delegation included controversial paragraphs urging that countries be allowed to produce generic versions of AIDS drugs. It also said that the international fund for HIV/AIDS established by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan should be used to "make drugs available at differentiated prices in line with social development indices and according to the prevalence of HIV in different regions," among other controversial language.

Brazil is under international pressure over its policy of producing cheaper generic versions of HIV/AIDS drugs and making them available to patients. Developed nations, the US and UK in particular, have warned that weakening intellectual property laws would limit the development of new drugs.

But after Brazil took part in a 6-hour meeting with the US, South Africa, Thailand and Sweden Thursday night to redraft the resolution, the more controversial wording of the original proposal was removed.

Stronger references to the need for "domestic industries [to be] consistent with international law" was added, among other things.

Although there was further debate among the 191 member nations of the WHO Friday morning, particularly by delegates from developing nations who opposed the changes, the resolution was finally accepted and will be sent to a plenary session of the assembly on Monday where it is expected to be accepted as a resolution.

According to a report from Deutche Welle radio, Dr. Daniel Tarantola, a senior policy advisor to the Director General of WHO, the new resolution "is a turning point in the perception on the global level of what should be done about HIV/AIDS."

"Previous resolutions recognized prevention as the utmost, sometimes only intervention in responding to HIV. This time we are talking about care as an additional set of interventions."

From ReutersHealth