Mbeki vs. the AIDS Establishment... (11)
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A cross-posting re. the cost of AIDS drugs that may find its place on
AFRO-NETS.
Let us break our personal silences, let us overcome our "wait and
see" approach, let us recognise that the next wars won't be "nation-
alist", "ideological", "religious" nor "ethnic" but plain "patent"
wars and sadly enough over the patents of drugs. Can we overtly coin
that progress? To *anonymously* cast your vote on this issue make use
of the reliable dot-com service of egroups (set-up with the prevges
egroup):
http://www.egroups.com/polls/prevges
Christian Labadie
mailto:CLabadie@t-online.de
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Oxfam International- press release on US offer
[Forwarded from <msmith@oxfam.org.uk>]
Oxfam International- press release on US offer
21 July 2000
Oxfam calls $1b drug deal "a debt for tomorrow's AIDS orphans"
Oxfam today called the United States' $1 billion loan for sub-Saharan
African nations to buy only US-made anti-AIDS drugs "a debt that to-
morrow's AIDS orphans will be forced to pay".
Oxfam said the deal would simply load more debt on countries that
were already among the poorest in the world. This deal amounts to a
credit-line which locks poor countries into buying expensive patented
drugs, when what they need is help to make or buy low cost generic
equivalents.
"The G8 nations promised last year to write-off $100 billion worth of
poor country debt. But little of that has been delivered. For the US
this week to offer these same poor countries another $1 billion of
debt is wrong-headed," said Oxfam head of advocacy Phil Bloomer. The
debt owed by sub-Saharan African nations currently stands at $15.2
billion.
"This offer has been publicised as an act of kindness toward Africa's
24.5 million sufferers of HIV/AIDS," Bloomer said. "In fact, the
money will flow straight into the pockets of the US pharmaceutical
industry."
The deal will help the drug companies fight off competition from "ge-
neric", or equivalent drugs manufactured out-of-patent and much
cheaper by countries like Brazil and India. The companies consider
these generic drugs to be a violation of intellectual property that
the companies say is protected by patents and trade agreements en-
forced by the WTO.
The anti-AIDS drug called stavudine anti-retroviral, for instance,
costs US$ 6.10 per daily dose in Uganda, where it is marketed by
Bristol-Myers Squibb, but just 55 cents in Brazil, where it is pro-
duced generically. Brazil and India are among the few countries in
the world that started local anti-AIDS drug production before the WTO
rules on intellectual property rights were applied.
"The best way to begin helping the poor countries of sub-Sahara Af-
rica is to cancel their debt so they can invest in health, education
and development," Bloomer said. "And an important way to begin help-
ing the millions of AIDS-sufferers in sub-Sahara Africa is to change
the WTO rules to allow countries to produce or purchase affordable
generic drugs."
For further information please contact
Matthew Grainger
Oxfam Media Unit, UK
Tel: +44-1865-312498
mailto:msmith@oxfam.org.uk
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