[Ip-health] AFP: Thailand to Provide Cheap Anti-AIDS Drugs

[Mike Palmedo]

 From Health GAP list...

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,275949,00.html

Thailand to provide cheap anti-Aids drugs - Scheme will supply 300,000
HIV-positive people in Thailand and overseas with generic drugs within
next two years

Oct 3, 2004 - AFP

BANGKOK - Thailand has vowed to provide locally-made cheap 'copycat'
anti-Aids drugs to 300,000 HIV-positive people here and overseas within
the next two years.

The kingdom is one of the world's key production centres for inexpensive
generic anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs along with Brazil and India, and has
already geared up production to supply 50,000 low-income Thais living
with the virus.

ARVs allow many people with HIV/Aids to extend life expectancy and
maintain their health.

Government officials told the Bangkok Post that construction of a new
state drug factory would ensure that ARV production would reach the target.

'We have enough capacity to give more people access to low-cost
anti-Aids drugs within two years,' Government Pharmaceutical
Organisation (GPO) official Isaraet Gosriwatana told the daily over the
weekend.

The GPO, the state enterprise under the Public Health Ministry, can now
make GPO-VIR, a generic version of three combination medicines, for
50,000 local HIV-positive people.

The drugs, which cost 1,200 baht (S$50) a month, are distributed to poor
patients upcountry under a pilot project.

Cambodia and Myanmar would top the list of countries to receive the drugs.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra promised delegates at an international
Aids conference in July to provide ARV drugs to other countries.

In the next financial year, starting this month, about 100,000 Thais
will get access to the drugs under the universal health care scheme,
according to the Bangkok Post.

Thailand supplied US$2.5 million (S$4.2 million) worth of generic ARVs
to Myanmar last month. It was the start of a three-year trial. Bangkok
also supplied one million condoms worth 10 million baht to fight the
spread of HIV along the border.

Thailand has repeatedly come under fire from American drug giants over
its anti-retroviral programme.

The companies argue that generic ARVs break patents and deprive the
firms of money needed to research new anti-Aids drugs.

Mr Amal Naj, Pfizer country manager representing the drugs industry in
Thailand-United States free trade negotiations, said protection of
intellectual property rights was essential to ensure the continued
development of new HIV/Aids drugs.

'We have to invest US$500 million to US$800 million a year to research
and develop the next generation of ARV drugs. It's not cheap,' the
Bangkok Post quoted him as saying. 'No matter how low we bring down the
price, poor people still cannot afford the drug.'

Thailand was one of six nations facing serious HIV/Aids epidemics which
forged a pact promoting low-cost drugs at a world Aids forum it hosted
in July.

Brazil, China, Nigeria Russia, Thailand and Ukraine forged the alliance,
with the aim of treating up to 10 million new patients. -- AFP