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Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - Web posted at 9:46:08 GMT Only one per cent of Africa AIDS victims get needed drugs HELEN NYAMBURANAIROBI - Only one per cent of the millions of Africans who need anti-AIDS drugs receive them, said a report released yesterday, one day after a UN AIDS expert called the crisis "the grotesque obscenity of the modern world". |
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The report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) urged developing countries to make AIDS drugs affordable by manufacturing their own anti-retroviral (ARVs) generics - cheap copies or passing laws to make it possible for them to be imported. "It is still a big challenge for countries to be involved in accessing anti-retrovirals and at low cost and quality," Sophie-Marie Scouflaire, a lead author of the report, told a news conference in Kenya at the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA). "It is possible to access treatment for less than one dollar a day if there is a strong policy within the country," she added. Pharmaceutical companies, who were to release a report to the United Nations in New York yesterday, said at least 76 300 Africans received cut-price HIV-AIDS drugs from six Western drugmakers in June this year, up from 35 500 in March 2002. But Jeffrey Sturchio, vice president of external affairs at US-based Merck & Co Inc, said a big gap remained. "There is still an unacceptable gap between those who need care and those who have access to medicines for HIV-AIDS. (But) there has been progress," he said. According to estimates from the United Nations AIDS group, 38,6 million adults were living with HIV-AIDS all over the world at the end of 2002, of whom an estimated 29,4 million were in sub-Saharan Africa. The ramifications of the health crisis for Africa are profound and threaten to undermine African countries' economies, societies and security. The WHO-MSF report found only 50 000 out of an estimated 4,1 million people urgently in need of ARVs in sub-Saharan Africa are on the drugs that reduce the level of the virus in the body and prolong life. The report comes a day after the UN special envoy for AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, sharply criticised the United States and its allies for spending US$200 billion on terrorism and the Iraq war, while doing little to combat a disease that threatens an entire continent. Calling the situation "the grotesque obscenity of the modern world", he said, "I am enraged by the behaviour of the rich powers,how much more grievous, by their neglect, they have made the situation in Africa". A UNAIDS report said only half of the US$6 billion needed to fight HIV-AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa by 2005 was likely to be raised. Lewis however said African governments should also be responsible for fighting the HIV-AIDS epidemic. "That isn't to take Africa off the hook: the behaviour of many former African leaders was indefensible," Lewis said. |
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