[Pharm-policy] SA AIDS Activists Illegally Import Drugs

[James Love]

http://allafrica.com/stories/200010180001.html

AIDS Activists Illegally Import Drugs

Panafrican News Agency 
October 18, 2000 

Cape Town, South Africa 

South Africa's "Treatment Action
Campaign" Tuesday admitted unlawfully importing a generic drug
to treat HIV/AIDS-related diseases and said it would distribute it to
medical doctors, in defiance of government legislation.

TAC chairman Zackie Achmat said their action was part of its
defiance campaign against patent abuse and AIDS profiteering by
multinational pharmaceutical companies.

The group has imported 5000 Biozole capsules from Thailand and
would distribute it to a network of doctors and pharmacists. Biozole
was a generic equivalent to US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's
Fluconazole.

Achmat said the Pfizer sold the drug for 11.50 US dollars per 200
milligram capsule to the private sector and 4.08 dollars per capsule
to the public sector. He said the Thai equivalent known as Biozole
cost US 25 cents.

Fluconozole is protected by a patent in South Africa, so generic
manufacturing is not allowed and the company is able to set its
own price.

Laboratory studies on the generic made in Thailand have shown it
to be as effective as the original.

Meanwhile, in another breakthrough for HIV/AIDS sufferers, the
anti-retroviral drug AZT will be made freely available to all rape
victims within the Western Cape.

Western Cape's health minister Nick Koornhof on Tuesday said
the University of Cape Town's Infectious Diseases Unit has found
that there was a higher incidence of vaginal tearing during rape
than during consensual intercourse, making transmission of the HI
Virus more likely.

The Unit recommended that a four-week course of AZT should be
administered to rape survivors.

"The basis for believing that AZT might be effective after rape is its
proven efficacy in preventing transmission from mother-to-child
and from patient to health care worker. Furthermore, prophylaxis
after sexual exposure has been shown to be effective in animal
models."

"There will also be a need to examine the efficacy of
post-exposure prophylaxis, following rape. Therefore, I have
decided that Province will provide the required treatment, if
clinicians are willing to prescribe it and provided that patients or
their guardians give consent," Koornhof said.

He said the cost of about 65 US dollars for a four-week course
would be paid by the provincial government. Koornhof said a
special emphasis will be placed on ensuring that the treatment is
available as soon as possible, to children who have been raped.

This will be done initially at specialised centres for children in the
province. As soon as the necessary arrangements have been
made the Department will extend this treatment to adult rape
survivors, at rape centres to be identified through the rest of the
Western Cape.