# E-DRUG: Drugs for AIDS in Africa **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [August 24, 1999, 4:23pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-drugs-for-aids-in-africa/5841 "1999-08-24T16:23:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![e-drug2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8dc957/32.png) [@e-drug2](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/e-drug2)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 1999, 4:23pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-drugs-for-aids-in-africa/5841/1 "1999-08-24T16:23:04Z")
E-DRUG: Drugs for AIDS in Africa ------------------------------------------------- [editorial in NYTimes, 24 August 99; copied as a fair use] The average African nation spends less than $10 per person each year on health care. The mix of drugs, including the new protease inhibitors, necessary to turn AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease costs at least $12,000 per person each year. That disparity virtually guarantees that most of the 22 million Africans infected with the AIDS virus will not get the best available treatment. Few will even be able to afford less expensive life-prolonging drugs such as AZT or ddI or -- far cheaper and just as crucial -- medicines to fight the infections that accompany AIDS. Washington is now arguing with South Africa about a new law in that country that could allow South Africa to make cheap versions of still-patented drugs or import them at less than the manufacturers want to charge. The debate is important, and it has revealed the need to broaden the Administration's policy, which has been dominated by trade issues and the desire to protect American pharmaceutical patents. Washington should stop pressuring South Africa to change the law, but even then far more will need to be done to get lifesaving medicines to poor Africans with AIDS. Part of the challenge is to increase the avail- ability of already affordable drugs. Last month, the Administration announced a $100 million effort to fight AIDS in Africa. It will buy and help countries use some cheap treatments, like medicines for tuberculosis and other AIDS-related infections and drugs to prevent mother-child transmission. While some pharmaceutical manufacturers, most recently Bristol-Myers Squibb, are making substantial donations to fight AIDS in poor countries, they want to see governments or health organizations bear the cost of AIDS drugs. But most of the newer ones are far too expensive. Many third-world countries have long responded to the high cost of patented drugs by copying them, sometimes for a tenth of the patented price. The pharmaceutical industry argues that this pirating discourages the search for new medicines, as patented drugs are priced high in part to allow manufacturers to recover the research and development costs of all their projects, even the unsuccessful ones. The drug companies, and the Clinton Administration's trade negotiators, have fought the efforts of third-world countries to manufacture or import cheap versions of still-patented drugs. American trade pressure on Thailand throughout the 1990's, for example, caused the country to put restrictions on its manufacture of cheap patented drugs and ban their import, which AIDS doctors say reduced the country's ability to fight the disease. What really worry the drug industry today, however, are the new intellectual property rules of the World Trade Organization. Over Washington's objections, poor nations won the right to make patented drugs in certain situations, especially when there is a ''national emergency.'' While Washington says it objects to technicalities in the new South African law, the larger reason trade officials have pressed so hard is that the industry fears South Africa could set precedents, within the world's trade rules, for the manufacture of cheap drugs. Drug makers have sued in South African courts to block the law. While defending intellectual property is important, the narrowness of the Administration's views is dismaying. Pharmaceutical companies would lose little if they found legal and controllable ways to let poor countries -- which offer scant market anyway -- reproduce drugs or buy them cheaply. In addition, some of the most important AIDS drugs were discovered in the National Institutes of Health, or with Government grants. Two examples are ddI and the protease inhibitor Norvir. That financing may well give Washington the right to allow the World Health Organization to license the drugs' manufacture, for sale only in poor nations in case of emergency. The Administration should explore this option for all such vital medicines developed at taxpayer expense. The desires of America's pharmaceutical companies have been the overwhelming force driving American policy on the issue of drugs in poor nations. Surely the needs of 35 million people infected with H.I.V. worldwide should count for more. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company -- Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'. Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'. For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.