Bringing the price of AIDS treatment down
Only three years ago the price of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment was over $2,000 per person per year. Generic drugs manufacturing brought the price down to about $500 per person per year. Efforts of UNAIDS, World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and recenty of the Clinton Foundation, brought the price down to under $140 per person per day for victims of AIDS in some Caribbean and African countries. In October 2003, the foundation of the former president of the US, Bill Clinton, brokered a deal with South African and Indian manufacturers of ARV drugs that guaranteed a preferential price of for AIDS patients in the countries where the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative is working with governments and organizations to set up integrated care, treatment and prevention programs. In January 2004, the Clinton Foundation reached a deal with companies such as Bayer Diagnostics and Beckman Coulter, that will likely cut costs of HIV/AIDS tests by up to 80 percent. These efforts are part of the integrated "3 by 5" initiative that aims to provide ARV drugs to 3 million people in developing countries by 2005.
These announcements preceded announcement of failing efforts of individual counties. The Guardian reported that the Nigerian government plan to provide cheap Aids drugs had failed, threatening the lives of people with HIV who began taking the drugs 2 years ago, only to be told now that the supply had run out.
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SAHIMS
Sacramento Observer
The Guardian