PHA-Exchange> WHO Hopes to Provide 3-in-1 AIDS Pill to Poor Nations

[Aviva]

From: Dieter Neuvians MD <neuvians at mweb.co.za>

WHO Hopes to Provide 3-in-1 AIDS Pill to Poor Nations
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Source U.N.Wire 
http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20031027/449_9797.asp
Monday, October 27, 2003 
 
The World Health Organization will this week reveal the first 
details of its global strategy to bring low-cost HIV/AIDS drugs 
to 3 million people in poor countries, a plan that top officials 
said will eventually include endorsement of pills that combine 
three antiretroviral drugs in a single tablet, the Washington 
Post reported Saturday:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14310-2003Oct24.html
 
Health experts in Geneva said the single-pill combinations would 
offer huge benefits by providing medication that would work for 
about 80 percent of patients in an easy-to-use and low-cost 
form. One combination pill is already being sold by a generic-
drug manufacturer in India, and several others are in the pipe-
line, the Post reported.
 
The endorsement of the three-in-one pills is likely to cause 
controversy because they could violate a variety of patents.
 
Only about 300,000 people are receiving AIDS drugs in the re-
gions targeted by WHO. Nearly 2 million of the 3 million tar-
geted patients are in Africa, with the rest scattered across 
Asia and Latin America, the Post said (Shankar Vedantam, Wash-
ington Post, Oct. 25).
 
On Thursday, the Clinton Foundation, founded by former U.S. 
President Bill Clinton, negotiated an agreement with four ge-
neric drug companies to cut the price of certain AIDS drugs for 
distribution in developing countries (U.N. Wire, Oct. 24):
http://www.unwire.org/News/328_426_9756.asp
 
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday welcomed the agree-
ment, saying via his spokesman that it would "not only make HIV 
treatment more affordable to many of those who could previously 
not afford them," but also should "act as a further incentive 
for governments, particularly in countries heavily affected by 
HIV/AIDS, to establish national treatment plans as part of their 
comprehensive prevention and care emergency strategies," (U.N. 
release, Oct. 24):
http://www.un.org/apps/news/printnews.asp?nid=8679
 
In related news, the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and 
WHO said yesterday that eradicating stigma and discrimination 
against people living with HIV/AIDS is critical to expanding ac-
cess and treatment to care.
 
According to the UNAIDS global progress report on implementing 
the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, almost 40 percent of 
countries, including half of the countries in sub-Saharan Af-
rica, have not yet adopted anti-discrimination legislation to 
protect people living with the disease.
 
"Governments must recognize that developing laws that protect 
the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS  is essential to an 
effective response to the epidemic," said Ben Plumley, chief of 
the executive office of UNAIDS (UNAIDS release, Oct. 26).