[Pharm-policy] SA police probe Zackie Achmat drug import of fluconazole

[James Love]

http://www.news24.co.za/News24/Health/Aids_Focus/0,1113,2-14-659_931274,00.html

25/10/2000 20:32 - (SA)



                  TAC's Aids drug import probed

 Cape Town - Police on Wednesday
 confirmed that they were
 investigating charges of illegally importing drugs against the leader
of
 the Aids lobby group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). 

 Aids activist Zackie Achmat last Friday agreed to hand over the drugs
 to the Department of Health. 

 He allegedly illegally imported 3 000 tablets of a generic drug from
 Thailand in the hope it would be registered for distribution. 

 Achmat handed himself over to Bellville police in Cape Town after
 charges of illegally importing drugs were laid against him by the
 Medicines Control Council (MCC) and the Department of Health. 

 Police spokesman Captain Etienne Terblanche told Sapa the matter
 would be forwarded to the Western Cape Director of Public
 Prosecutions as soon as the police investigation was completed. 

 After meeting police in the presence of his lawyer, Achmat last week
 told journalists and supporters that he had given the drug, Biozole, to
 the department for it to be registered for distribution. 

 Achmat said TAC asked for a Section 21 registration for the tablet to
 speed up the process. 

 TAC announced earlier this week that it had imported the drug, a
 generic version of Fluconazole, at a fraction of the cost. 

 This was part of its defiance campaign against "patent abuse and Aids
 profiteering" by multinational pharmaceutical companies. 

 Although he bought 5 000 tablets, he left 2 000 in Thailand for
 safekeeping in the event that the imported drugs were tampered with
 in any way, or not registered. 

 It was sad the group had to break the law to make treatment available
 to HIV sufferers, he said. 

 A TAC spokesman said that they had not yet received word from police
 by Wednesday afternoon. 

 Western Cape Director of Public Prosecutions Frank Kahn's office said
 that Kahn would deliberate whether to press or withdraw charges as
 soon as he had received the investigation dockets. - Sapa


-- 
James Love  <love@cptech.org>  http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 200036
voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176