E-DRUG: Price cuts have little impact on access to AIDS drugs in Uganda
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["Voluntary" price cuts by multinationals seem not to make much impact in
Uganda, where only 1400 people are buying their ARVs out of pocket.
Those who can afford it, rather buy the cheaper generic ARVs instead.
This confirms again the extreme importance of having generic competition
in markets where patents are not (yet) recognized.
In markets where pre-TRIPS patent Acts prevent generic access, compulsory
licensing is the only solution to force competition.
WHO and UNAIDS yesterday met with CIPLA; it will be interesting to see how
the world community (except PLWA's?) at the Norway meeting is going to
address the patent question in making affordable ARVs accessible.
A voluntary license for all ARVs, MDR-TB and malaria drugs to developing
countries would be a good opening bid to plan for sharply increased access
to essential drugs in the coming 2-5 years. If the drug
companies are not willing to set aside their patent rights for the biggest
health disaster ever happening to this planet (40 million people infected, and
increasing sharply) then compulsory licensing is the only way forward.
TRIPS specifically permits non-commercial government use as a valid exception
for taking away patent rights in the interest of public health.
The USA (Clinton, Bush) and EU (Lamy) have stated that developing countries
can use these permitted TRIPS exceptions for the AIDS disaster.
Copied from Pharm-Policy with thanks; copied as fair use. NN]
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010323/1/kz9m.html
Friday March 23, 9:53 PM
Price cuts have little impact on access to AIDS drugs in Uganda
KAMPALA, March 23 (AFP) -
Drugs used to fight HIV and AIDS remain well beyond the reach of most of
the two million people infected in Uganda even after their
manufacturers, who are facing mounting international pressure, slashed
prices in December.
About 1.2 percent of the 820,000 people living with AIDS in Uganda,
where average annual income is 340 dollars, can afford any of the drugs
used to treat the disease.
According to Peter Mugenyi, a doctor working with the Uganda Joint
Clinical Research Centre, most of the estimated 10,000 people with
access to such drugs are using generic versions made in India, not the
patented ones whose prices were cut last year.
"The main driver of this increase (from about 1,400 users) in the number
of people accessing the drugs is mainly the generics that have remained
cheaper even after these patent holders announced their cuts," said the
doctor.
He gave an example of Duovir, a generic antiretroviral made by India's
Cipla Ltd and which contains products for which Glaxo Wellcome claims to
hold intellectual property rights.
In Uganda, Duovir costs 115,000 shillings (70 dollars) a month against
165,000 shillings for the patented equivalent, down from the 365,000
shillings charged before the December price cut.
Glaxo Wellcome last year threatened to take legal action against Cipla
if it continued to ship Duovir into Ghana.
It is among 39 big drugs companies suing the South African government
over laws that allegedly threaten their intellectual property rights, in
a case that has brought international attention to the plight of people
with AIDS in poor countries.
Uganda's health sector has an answer to claims by patent holders that,
because of lack of infrastructure required for the correct
administration of AIDS and HIV drugs, cheaper medecines are not the only
solution.
Director of Health Services Professor Francis Omaswa told AFP that the
government is planning to increase the number of specialist medical
centres where such complex adminstration can be carried out from five to
13.
"We want at least one centre in every region of the country," Omaswa
said, adding that negotiations for further price cuts would continue
with manufacturers.
According to Mugyenyi, patent-holding producers such as Glaxo Wellcome
and Boerhinger Ingelheim cut prices only on drugs rivalled by cheaper
generic versions and maintained prices where no such alternatives were
available.
For leading AIDS activist Major Rubaramira Ruranga, who has been
sero-positive for 16 years and heads People Living With AIDS, the price
cuts were negligible and the government should do more.
"There are very few people on the drugs and yet through the studies I
have made, these drugs can keep someone alive for a very long time,"
said Rubaramira, who has paid for his own anti-retroviral treatment.
From being considered the embodiment of the worst case AIDS scenario,
there are now glimmers of hope in Uganda, where the disease has claimed
half a million lives since the first recorded case in 1982.
Once whisperingly referred to as "slim" because of the way patients
rapidly lose weight, AIDS is now openly discussed in Uganda, a fact that
has helped reduce infection rates by half over the last decade.
One of the several AIDS vaccines being researched around the world was
developed in Uganda.
And it was in a Ugandan hospital that the antiretroviral Nevirapine was
found to minimise mother-to-child HIV transmission with just two
dosages, one for the mother before labour and one for the newborn, at a
cost of four dollars.
There are now plans to distribute the drug to all sero-positive pregnant
women across the country.
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