PHA-Exchange> KENYA: Anti-AIDS groups demand urgency to match crisis

[George(s) Lessard]

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From:           	IRIN <IRIN at irinnews.org>
Date sent:      	Mon, 20 May 2002 13:47:38 GMT
Subject:        	KENYA: Anti-AIDS groups demand urgency to match crisis

U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

KENYA: Anti-AIDS groups demand urgency to match crisis

NAIROBI, 20 May (IRIN) - AIDS organisations meeting in the Kenyan capital,
Nairobi, on Sunday urged political, religious and community leaders to step up,
expand and intensify the fight against the disease, and provide better
leadership and guidance to society in the face of the scale of the pandemic.

"The current budgets and support levels do not reflect the urgency of the
pandemic," the activist organisations asserted, pointing out that the disease
had now infected some 2.2 million people in the country, and was claiming 700
lives a day. 

The organisations urged Kenya's leaders to address structural problems in the
health sector, fight discrimination against HIV-infected people, and help
society overcome the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS issues.

They also demanded the speedy introduction of cheaper, generic AIDS drugs as
provided under in the new Industrial Property Act, which became law in Kenya on
1 May.  

The groups issuing Sunday's call for an intensified push against HIV/AIDS
included the National AIDS Control Council of Kenya; Women Fighting AIDS in
Kenya; The Association for People With AIDS in Kenya; the Post-Test Club; Soul
to Soul; the Kenya AIDS and Drugs Alliance; Action Aid (Kenya); and Medecins
Sans Frontieres.  

They were marking the 19th International AIDS Memorial Day at the Kenyatta
International Conference Centre in Nairobi with public mourning for the loss of
loved ones and a call to strengthen the commitment to fighting the pandemic.  

Political, religious and community leaders could help tackle stigma "by talking
about these issues at public gatherings, or setting examples by visiting and
hugging AIDS patients," said Dr Chris Ouma of Action Aid.

It would also be helpful if leaders and community figures in Kenya wore the
symbolic anti-AIDS red ribbon in public places and forums, and adopted an open
attitude to HIV/AIDS, Sunday's press statement said.

The activist organisations called for the urgent introduction of cheaper
anti-AIDS drugs, after the coming into effect earlier this month of the
Industrial Property Act, which effectively eased restrictions on the 
importation
of generic drugs.

The importation of these drugs, including antiretrovirals (ARVs) which have
proven effective in treating HIV-positive patients, was previously restricted 
by
the patent and intellectual property rights of the transnational companies 
which
developed them.    

The estimated cost of ARVs in Kenya is between US $2.5 and $5 per day, while 
the
average Kenyan income is about $1 per day, but the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) ruled in November 2001 that developing countries could use generic drugs
in times of health crises, overriding the patent rights held by major
pharmaceutical companies.

The WTO agreement and the 1 May passage into law of the Kenya Industrial
Property Act have placed the responsibility for increasing Kenyans' access to
life-saving medicines on the Kenyan government and other leaders, according to
campaigners.

The Indian High Commissioner to Kenya, Rajiv Bhatia, said at the weekend that
three pharmaceutical companies from India - a leading producer of generic
essential medicines - were at an advanced stage of planning to begin
manufacturing ARVs within Kenya, the East African Standard newspaper reported 
on
Monday, 20 May. "Sympathising is not enough... We need to act fast," he added. 

As yet, cheaper drugs were still unavailable, because the Pharmacy and Poisons
Board - the country's drugs registration authority - had not yet processed
applications for cheaper drugs, according to Sunday's press statement.

The slow, bureaucratic and corruption-prone process by which drug registration
was being effected rendered it necessary for a new system to be established, it
said.

What Kenya needed, overall, was "a more focused, results-oriented approach to
fighting the pandemic," the organisations added. "It remains difficult to mourn
the people who died of AIDS in the past until we do everything in our power to
ensure a minimum of casualties in the future."


[ENDS]

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