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Ali ibn Abi Talib once said, "The intellect is better than desire, for the intellect makes you king over your destiny, and desire makes you a slave of your destiny" (Haeri p.63). In the case of treatments for HIV and AIDS, the drug companies' desire for more money has created a pharmaceutical market full of problems.
In a letter to London's Guardian Weekly, Dr. Eric Goemaere of the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) AIDS Program in South Africa wrote, "It's possible to offer anti-retroviral treatment at the primary health core level, with more complicated medical tests being done in referral hospitals/labs in the city center. Now that international public pressure has finally started to drive drug prices down, the international community must start to look seriously at how we can practically support the efforts of third world governments to provide treatment. We who work in the field don't see AIDS simply in terms of statistics, but as people, patients, colleagues and friends who have to be told to go home and prepare to die because the medicines that could keep them alive are not available for them..."
The drug industry, on the other hand, does not see the plight of the African people, but rather, sees the African nations as 'easy-pickings' for its pharmaceutical market. The global drug industry took South Africa to court last month to challenge a law, which allows for the import of generic AIDS drugs but only within certain price guidelines. However, when they lost their case, Merck and Company, one of the 39 international pharmaceutical companies, made an offer to continue to import drugs under the new prices, signaling a downward plunge of the costs (Boseley, p.4). While these drugs keep AIDS manageable in the West, they leave South Africa, a country of 43 million people, to expect four to six million to die of AIDS by 2010 leaving some two million children orphaned ( Economist, p.17).
However, South Africa is not the only nation with a rising death toll. HIV infections are also soaring in the UK, with 3,300 people testing positive for the virus last year (Boseley p.13). This is double last decade's numbers. But, due to managed care, Western AIDS patients will not die within the ten - year span that their South African counterparts will. In Russia 50,000 new infections were reported within the first nine months of last year.
Despite these figures, affordable cures for HIV and AIDS remain wrapped up in conflicts between political leaders, legal courts and pharmaceutical giants. Surgeon and immunologist, Dr. Jeremiah Abalaka, announced a cure for HIV in 1999. But Nigerian health minister, Dr. Tim Menakay, immediately rejected it, saying that the government needed to know how the vaccine was made. The Nigerian government later feared that it would be offered to Western drug companies, whose governments would put pressure on Nigeria to buy back the pharmaceuticals in exchange for debt relief, otherwise known as bio prospecting. Finally, the Federal House of Representatives promised to protect Abalaka's patent, pending the outcome of the tests.
Similarly in Kenya, a court case delayed the release of another affordable new vaccine. Kenya cites AIDS as a national disaster, with around four million people diagnosed as HIV-positive and 600 dying from the disease every day (Associated Press & Reuters, p.1). As with Nigeria, a trial ensued over a vaccine developed by scientists at the University of Kenya and the British Medical Research Council. The vaccine is designed to boost the immune system by delivering a set of instructions that help the body recognize HIV more easily. It is essentially a double vaccine. The first component is a DNA vaccine, which delivers the genetic information on HIV. The second component delivers the same genetic information with a weakened smallpox virus into the cells. If effective, the two will be combined and ward off AIDS. The vaccine has been delayed due to wrangling over patent ownership.
Sources:
- "Africa's Elusive Dawn." The Economist. Feb (2001): 17.
- Associated Press & Reuters "Vaccine To Combat AIDS in Africa Goes On Trial."
- Boseley, Sarah. "AIDS Is Back On Message." Guardian Weekly. Dec 7 - 13 (2000): 13.
- Boseley, Sarah. "Embarrassed Firms Slash Prices for Aids Drugs." Guardian Weekly. March 15-21 (2001).
- Goemaere, Eric. "Paying the Price for AIDS." Guardian Weekly. Feb. 22-28 (2001): 13
- Haeri, Fadlalla. "The Sayings & Wisdom of Imam 'Ali." Britain: Zahra Publ. & Muhammadi Trust, 1992.
- Sheyin, Ola "A Vaccine In Political Web." New African. Vol. 389 (Oct 2000): 8.
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