AIDS drugs LONDON, Jan. 14 - Pharmaceutical companies said on Tuesday they were increasing the supply of life-saving AIDS medicines to Africa but acknowledged that current efforts only scratched the surface of the problem.
Industry figures show more than 35,500 Africans were receiving cut-price HIV/AIDS drugs at the end of March 2002 - a four-fold increase over the previous 18 months but still only 0.01 percent of those infected on the continent. Since then, the six companies behind the accelerating access initiative believe numbers have increased significantly, though full figures for 2002 will not be available for some months. "We know the pace is picking up," Jeffrey Sturchio, vice president of external affairs at Merck & Co. Inc., told reporters in London. Sturchio said his own company had seen the number of people taking antiretroviral drugs in Botswana increase from 500 last July to 3,500 by November, while in South Africa 10,000 were now using Merck products. Drugmakers launched their preferential pricing scheme in May 2000 following intense pressure for price cuts in Africa, the epicenter of the global pandemic. A total of 19 countries have now struck deals with firms for discounts of 85-90 percent. Critics argue it is too little, too late. "There are six million people in urgent need of receiving antiretroviral therapy in the world and the vast majority are not getting it," said Raffaella Ravinetto, pharmaceutical co-ordinator at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Geneva. "The fact that so few are receiving treatment is a demonstration that this procedure is not effective enough." MSF argues drug prices are still too high, with a year's supply of AZT from GlaxoSmithKline Plc. costing $438 in Africa while Indian generic firms ask as little as $180. Industry counters that price is only a part of the story and many branded medicines are now just as cheap as generics. The World Health Organization has a goal of getting antiretroviral treatment to three million people in the developing world by 2005. Merck's Sturchio said that would only be achieved if the international community backed up drug price cuts with money to pay for distribution and healthcare on the ground. "It's obvious more resources need to be made available," he said. "I understand the frustration that there hasn't been more progress ... but it's like trying to change a tire on a car that's going at 100 kilometers an hour." UNAIDS, the United Nations agency, estimates that five million people were newly infected with HIV during 2002, taking the tally of those living with the deadly virus to 42 million -70 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. The companies involved in the accelerating access initiative are Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Roche Holding AG, Abbott Laboratories and private German group Boehringer-Ingelheim. http://www.msnbc.com/news/459645.asp?0dm=H1DMH _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
