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Malaysia's Mahathir: time to allow compulsory licensing of life- saving drugs
HEALTH-ASIA: Better Access to HIV/AIDS Drugs, Less Stigma Needed
By Johanna Son
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 (IPS) - Asia-Pacific countries need to give wider access
to now-expensive treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS, and to cure the
stigma that comes with the disease, if they are to make more headway in
battling the pandemic in the years to come.
These were the themes that dominated the opening day here Saturday of the
Fifth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), which
is being attended more than 3,000 people from 67 countries. It runs until Oct
27 here in the Malaysian capital.
As it is, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told the opening ceremony
here, the developing world bears the brunt of deaths from the HIV/AIDS
pandemic but lacks the clout and means to ensure better treatment for its
people living the disease.
''AIDS has augmented the divide between North and South, between the haves
and have-nots. What is the worse is that the have-nots will have less,
because of AIDS,'' Mahathir said.
At present, 95 percent of people with HIV are in the developing world, which
has also experienced 95 percent of all deaths from AIDS.
But while AIDS deaths in the U.S. and some other industrialised countries are
slowing due to better treatment options, developing countries are getting
more infections but can hardly afford to provide adequate care.
''Hospices for people with AIDS are being closed in the UK and Switzerland,
but in developing countries, people cannot even set up hospices,'' Mahathir
pointed out. ''There is not enough bed space in hospitals for people with
AIDS.''
''Whether measured against the yardstick of deteriorating child survival,
crumbling life expectancy, overburdened health care systems, increasing
orphanhood or bottom-line losses to businesses, AIDS has never posed a bigger
threat to development as it is now,'' he added.
More than 7 million people in the Asia-Pacific are estimated to have HIV,
which causes AIDS. Each year, nearly 700,000 people aged 14-25 years get HIV
in the region.
According to the Joint UN Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS), Asia accounted for 1.4
million of 5.8 million new HIV infections in 1998.
More than a decade since the first cases of AIDS were reported, the pandemic
has begun to take more lives in the region as the years progress.
While four-fifths of all deaths from AIDS in 1998 were in sub- Saharan
Africa, in parts of Asia the speed by which the pandemic has taken root is
alarming health and development workers.
As Lisa Messersmith of the US' Ford Foundation said: ''Asia has the world's
fastest growing AIDS epidemic. . . In many countries in the region the
personal, social and economic impact of AIDS on those currently in their most
productive years is already being felt.''
HIV/AIDS is ''beginning to spread in earnest through the vast populations of
India and China'', according to a United Nations briefing paper here. For
instance, it estimates that by next year, a third of deaths in the working
population in Thailand will be due to AIDS -- despite its successful record
in curbing new HIV infections.
Apart from the usual lack of funds by developing countries for treatment,
Mahathir said develping countries should get together to ''challenge''
pharmaceutical companies to produce cheaper medicines to benefit the
overwhelming majority of people with HIV/AIDS.
''It is no longer enough to say 'no money','' said one person with HIV who
addressed the opening rites.
''I have had HIV for 10 years, but until today I dare not think of treatment
because of the cost,'' Eugene of the Pink Triangle group in Malaysia told the
assembly Saturday.
Mahathir said it was time to allow compulsory licensing of life- saving
drugs, which he stresses is allowed by the rules of the World Ttrade
Organisation.
''But it is sad to see certain powerful countries aligning themselves with
giant pharmaceutical companies to deny developing countries the right to
produce cheaper drugs to save the lives of their people,'' he argued.
''Profit is taking precedent over people's lives,'' he said. While companies
understandably want to recoup investments in research, Mahathir said they
''should not try to recoup from the suffering of the poor''.
While Mahathir gave no specifics, he was clearly referring to the controversy
surrounding drug companies who claim violation of intellectual property
rights when AIDS-affected countries produce those drugs in order to make them
cheaper.
Battling the social stigma that HIV/AIDS entails is another major front in
the battle against the disease, agreed Mahathir, Dr Peter Piot, executive
director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and
representatives of people living with HIV/AIDS.
''The reasons for fighting this stigma are practical,'' said Piot, who warned
against complacency in battling HIV/AIDS because the rate of infection can
pick up with ''frightening speed''.
Fighting discrimination made ''practical'' sense because it makes education
about HIV/AIDS difficult, discourages people from testing and seeking
counselling, and in turn makes it harder to provide adequate care and support
for people who have the disease, he explained.
As it is, Eugene of Pink Triangle, which groups people with HIV/AIDS and the
people who care for them, said ''most of us live double lives''.
One is the daily life that people who do not know about their HIV-positive
status see, while the other one is that of ''people constantly worrying if
people will know about their status and change their attitude toward them'',
he explained.
''Some people would rather not believe that this happens, but we have trouble
getting jobs and decent treatment at hospitals,'' Eugene added.
(END/IPS/ap-he-dv/js/99)
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James Love / Director, Consumer Project on Technology
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