'Access to Aids drugs is a major priority'

About six million people in poor countries need anti-retroviral treatment, but only five percent of them are getting it, according to the World Health Organisation.

Cost of the drugs is a key issue. European and American pharmaceutical giants make most of the drugs, protected by patents and costing as much as $5 000 (about R30 000) per person per year.

A few developing countries are making generic drugs - copies of medicines whose patents have run out - but it's not enough to reach everybody. About 38 million people are infected with HIV, a majority of them in poor countries: about 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa and seven million in Asia.

Plenary sessions on Tuesday - the third day of the six-day conference - focused on how to boost access and whether drug companies are unfairly keeping prices high and preventing poor countries such as India, Brazil and Thailand from making copies.

To succeed in fighting the epidemic, political leaders "will need to drastically increase spending on Aids and scale up prevention, care and treatment programmes," said a statement by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Forum on HIV and Aids and Development.

The forum of 33 countries in the region is funded by Australia, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

By 2005 an estimated $12-billion will be needed annually to fight the disease in developing countries, but current annual global spending now amounts to under $5-billion.

"The $200- to $300-billion dollars spent in Iraq probably could have eradicated this illness," actor Richard Gere told a panel discussion on Monday.

Gere is among celebrities - also including actress Ashley Judd and South African statesman Nelson Mandela - attending the conference, which draws a mix of science and activism. Kofi Annan is attending the 15th conference in the first visit by a United Nations secretary-general since the first one in the US city of Atlanta in 1985.

At the heart of the Aids debate is how to control the spread of the virus.

Scientists, activists and policy-makers at the venue have touted condoms as a trusted weapon in the fight against Aids, dismissing US President George Bush's policy of abstinence as a "serious setback" in global efforts to control the pandemic.

Condoms have been promoted as a frontline defence against Aids by countries such as Thailand where a campaign to get sex workers to insist on condoms yielded a more-than-sevenfold reduction in HIV rates in 13 years.

In Asia, the sex trade has been the main engine behind infections in countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, where epidemics exploded by the late 1980s - sparking aggressive campaigns to boost condom use.

Proponents say there is no better way to prevent HIV than by using condoms and giving clean syringes to intravenous drug users. Their philosophy is known as CNN, or Condoms, Needles, Negotiating Skills.

The Bush administration maintains that emphasising condoms promotes promiscuity among the youth, and pushes a policy known as ABC -Abstinence, Being Faithful and Condoms, in that order of priority.

"In an age where five million people are newly infected each year and women and girls too often do not have the choice to abstain, an abstinence-until-marriage programme is not only irresponsible, it's really inhumane," US Congress member Barbara Lee said. - Sapa-AP

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=qw1089685083248B232

The International AIDS Conference called for scaling up access to life-prolonging medicine for those infected and raised a key question: Are patents preventing drugs from reaching millions of needy?

Some six million people in poor countries need antiretroviral treatment, but only five per cent of them are getting it, according to the World Health Organisation.

Cost of the drugs is a key issue. European and US pharmaceutical giants make most of them, protected by patents and costing as much as $US5,000 ($A6,895) per person per year.

Some developing countries are making generic drugs - in some cases copies of medicines whose patents have run out - but not enough to reach everybody. Some 38 million people are infected with HIV, mostly in poor countries: 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa and 7.2 million in Asia.

Plenary sessions on Tuesday - the third day of the six-day conference - focused on how to boost access and whether drug companies are unfairly keeping prices high and preventing poor countries such as India, Brazil and Thailand from making copies.

In a message from French President Jacques Chirac, read out at the meeting, he called for measures to ensure that rich countries don't pressure poor ones to forfeit rights to make generic drugs in return for free trade agreements - "which would be tantamount to blackmail".

"What is the point of starting treatment without any guarantee of having quality and affordable drugs in the long term?" he said.

A group of African protesters shouted during the speech to demand more AIDS funding from the developed G-8 countries, chanting "shame! shame!" in harmony for nearly a minute.

To succeed in fighting the epidemic, political leaders "will need to drastically increase spending on AIDS and scale up prevention, care and treatment programs," said a statement by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Forum on HIV/AIDS and Development.

By 2005 an estimated $US12 billion ($A16.55 billion) will be needed annually to fight the disease in developing countries, but current annual global spending now amounts to under $US5 billion ($A6.9 billion).

"The $US200 to $US300 billion ($A276 billion - $A414 billion) dollars spent in Iraq probably could have eradicated this illness," actor Richard Gere told a panel discussion.

Gere is among celebrities - also including actress Ashley Judd and senior African statesman Nelson Mandela - attending the conference, which draws a mix of science and activism. Kofi Annan is attending the 15th conference in the first visit by a UN secretary-general since the first one in the US city of Atlanta in 1985.

At the heart of the AIDS debate is how to control the spread of the virus.

Scientists, activists and policy-makers at the venue have touted condoms as a trusted weapon in the fight against AIDS, dismissing US President George W Bush's policy of abstinence as a setback in global efforts to control the pandemic.

Proponents say there is no better way to prevent HIV than by using condoms and giving clean syringes to intravenous drug users. Their philosophy is known as CNN, or Condoms, Needles, Negotiating Skills.

The Bush administration maintains that emphasising condoms promotes promiscuity among the youth, and pushes a policy known as ABC - Abstinence, Being Faithful and Condoms, in that order of priority.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/13/1089689763232.html?oneclick=true