[Pharm-policy] Nytimes editorial: bush admin & Fighting AIDS in Africa

[James Love]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: nytimes editorial: bush admin & Fighting AIDS in Africa
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 13:17:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Sharonann Lynch <salynch00@earthlink.net>

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/25/opinion/25SUN2.html

February 25, 2001
Fighting AIDS in Africa

The recent announcement by the Indian drug company Cipla that it 
would sell AIDS therapy for $600 a year or less to African countries 
is a step toward commuting the death sentences now hanging over the 
25 million Africans infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. 
A year and a half ago, few people even dreamed that the citizens of 
poor nations would be able to get the antiretroviral drugs that have 
turned AIDS into a manageable disease in rich countries. Now, each 
week brings new developments on fighting AIDS in poor nations, and a 
stronger international consensus that poor countries can provide 
treatment to those infected and improve their prevention campaigns to 
slow the spread of the virus. None of this will be possible, however, 
without leadership from the Bush administration, which must take a 
more aggressive role in combatting AIDS abroad than its predecessor.

One reason for the worldwide movement on AIDS is that the dimensions 
of the apocalypse are beginning to sink in. The AIDS virus is a 
plague that now afflicts one in five adults in South Africa. 
Throughout Africa, it is eroding economic growth and killing the most 
productive people. It could bring about the social collapse of many 
countries, creating instability and humanitarian crises.

Bush administration officials recognize that AIDS has become a 
foreign policy issue for the United States. Secretary of State Colin 
Powell has called AIDS an economic and national security problem and 
said Congress has been generous. But Congress's allocation amounts to 
only $315 million this year for all AIDS programs worldwide - vastly 
inadequate to prevent the catastrophic scenarios looming in Africa. 
An effective prevention program throughout Africa - the very minimum 
necessary - would cost $1.5 billion, according to the United Nations 
program on AIDS. Relieving the pain of AIDS sufferers and treating 
their infections would cost a similar amount, and providing drugs to 
attack the AIDS virus would cost even more.

The Cipla offer has greatly increased the possibility that poor 
nations will be able to treat AIDS, especially if it provokes 
brand-name drug makers to lower their prices, as it seems to be 
doing. A year of therapy costs $10,000 or more in the United States, 
but several multinational drug companies have negotiated far lower 
prices with some African countries, as low as $1,000 a year, and now 
Cipla will sell generic drug cocktails for less. But even at $600 a 
year, these drugs are out of reach for most Africans. Wealthy nations 
are going to have to pay for the drugs - which could initially cost 
$3 billion a year for Africa, and more as a greater number of 
patients are reached. The West must help African nations improve 
their health care delivery systems so they can properly administer 
these drugs - an effort that would reap many other health benefits as 
well.

America need not take on this financial burden alone, but it must 
assume part of the responsibility. That will require the Bush 
administration to multiply its allocation for AIDS in the third world 
substantially. Just as important, the administration must abandon its 
predecessors' policies that blocked access to cheap drugs in poor 
countries in the name of protecting the patent rights of American 
drug companies.

The pharmaceutical industry, whose donations favor Republicans, is 
likely to be even more influential with this president than it was 
with Bill Clinton. But the first sign from the Bush administration is 
encouraging. Trade officials indicated last week that Washington will 
not use trade to pressure poor nations that seek to make or buy 
generic AIDS drugs, as long as their efforts fall within world trade 
rules. The Clinton administration had used such tactics but abandoned 
them after criticism from AIDS activists. Many feared they would now 
be revived. The Bush administration should also work with Unaids and 
the World Health Organization to improve access to needed medicines. 
The means now exist to treat the sick, if America will help.