The United Nations’ global health watchdog is dragging its feet in approving cheap, effective medicines for the poor to combat AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, a leading medical charity said on Tuesday.

Millions of patients lack access to affordable treatments because the World Health Organisation programme to inspect drugs is understaffed and hampered by politics, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

“Continuing to assist countries in the procurement of quality medicines for AIDS, malaria and Tuberculosis is becoming a mission impossible,” said MSF on the sidelines of the annual World Health Assembly, attended by experts from 192 countries.

To get assistance from the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria - one of the biggest providers of health aid - recipients may only purchase drugs approved by the WHO or national health authorities, a process that, critics say, favours big-name drug manufacturers.

Rowan Gillies, head of MSF’s international council, said the WHO programme was good but small, lacking funding, staff and political support from top WHO leadership.

“This is restricting patients’ access to essential medicines in many of the places we work in, particularly in countries that have limited capacity to assess the quality of medicines themselves,” Gillies said.

WHO programme head Lembit Rago said any delays were less the result of a lack of resources than a measure of the painstaking efforts undertaken to ensure that the medicines it approved met its quality standards.