[Pharm-policy] Mali accepts 5-company initiative

[Robert Weissman]

Mali signs accord with pharma firms for cut-price AIDS drugs
Sunday, 08-Apr-2001 9:40AM      Story from AFP
Copyright 2001 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)

BAMAKO, April 8 (AFP) - The Malian government has signed an agreement with
four international pharmaceutical companies to reduce the cost of
anti-AIDS drugs by up to 89 percent from current prices.

"A treatment therapy which costed 480 dollars (530 euros) per patient per
month will now cost between 60 and 110 dollars monthly per AIDS sufferer,"
Malian Health Minister Traore Fatoumata Nafo told reporters Saturday.

Between 300 and 400 of those struck by the disease will benefit from
government subsidies this year, and between 500 and 600 sufferers could
benefit from them next year, Traore said.

The four US, British and German drug firms said they were pleased with the
agreement.

The pharma companies are Boehringer-Ingelheim from Germany,
GlaxoSmithKline from Britain, along with Merck Sharp et Dohme and Bristol
Myers Squibb from the United States.

Around 3.5 percent of Malians are infected with HIV. However, 5 percent of
residents in the Sakasso region, south of Bamako, along a key road link to
neighbouring Ivory Coast, carry the virus.

The government plans to reduce the number of infections by one third by
2005.

Last year, Malian President Alpha Oumar Konare broke taboos surrounding
the disease by distributing 60,000 condoms to local mayors to help prevent
the spread of the disease.

The normal price of anti-retroviral drugs places them out of reach of many
developing countries.

The South African government is waging a landmark court battle with 39
large pharmaceutical countries to facilitate access to cheap medicine.

Last month, South Africa and Cuba signed an agreement that could clear the
way for the two countries to cooperate in producing low-cost AIDS drugs
while ignoring drug company patents.