E-drug: ARV drugs in India
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Dear Friends,
Re: My earlier posting regarding ARV drugs and Essential Drug List in India
-- the following may help to better place the situation in its correct
perspective.
The Indian Health system is one of the most privatised (if not the most)
systems in the world. Pressures to privatise have mounted further in the
past decade because of the Fund/Bank led policies that we are pursuing. This
has led to severe compression in funds available for social sectors like
Health and Education. In such a situation the first casualty is often drugs
and other consumables, as fixed costs like salaries, rents, etc. are
difficult to cut initially.
As regards ARVs, I think we need to acknowledge that with the exception of
Brazil, most countries in the South do not offer treatment access to HIV+
patients through the public funded health system (South Africa is a clear
example). So, in that sense, India is not an exception. India is an unique
case for a different reason -- here's a country that is able to offer low
cost ARV drugs to other countries, but at the same time there is so little
demand for these within the country. Here again we need to understand that
this is a function of India's liberal Patent laws -- something that we are
going to change soon!
India's situation needs to be located in the context of the inequities
inherent in the global situation today, where developing countries are being
pushed to the brink in more ways than one. So, in a sense, the North cannot
wash its hands off the problem.
The non-availability of essential drugs has received some attention of late
and the draft of a New Health Policy that is on the anvil talks about a
Central funding mechanism to ease the situation (whether the Ministry of
Finance shall agree to this is anybody's guess!).
Dr.Amit Sen Gupta
National Campaign Committee for Drug Policy
India
Amit Sen Gupta <ctddsf@vsnl.com>
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