E-drug: Reduction in Perinatal Transmission of HIV (cont'd)
---------------------------------------------
I strongly disagree with Richard Laing's remarks on involvement of the
private sector or the NGO sector in providing AZT. Under no
circumstances must this be done by the private or NGO sectors, if
other medication is offered by the state health services (such as in
Namibia). This will only discriminate against women with poor access to
resources, whereas the urban elites will get it easily. And parallel
markets will develop as you mentioned. What we need is cheaper AZT.
Nobody says we should tread 100000 people in Namibia with the triple
cocktail. According to a recent estimate of 6000 N$ per person and
month (equalling 1200 US$) it would total 1.5 times our annual (total)
national budget.
Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse
Resident Medical Officer
Swakopmund State Hospital
Swakopmund, Namibia
e-mail: el@lisse.NA
--
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'.