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The International AIDS Conference makes a commitment to saving Third-World Lives
by Mark Schoofs
2000-08-10

Durban had marked a turning point largely because of the spirit of the participants and the flurry of new initiatives. Two of those initiatives - one aimed at driving down the price of medicine, the other a grassroots effort designed to keep AIDS activists alive and fighting - epitomise the actions taken at the conference. They also reveal the daunting task of bringing treatment to the third world.

Two years ago, the World AIDS Conference in Geneva was filled with rhetoric lamenting the gap between rich and poor. But this year's conference was marked by unprecedented global action that ranged from the small efforts of people like Wildes to new initiatives launched by government and pharmaceutical companies. For example:

• The World Bank announced a new $500 million programme targeting AIDS.
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and pharmaceutical giant Merck each pledged $50 million to create a soup-to-nuts AIDS programme in Botswana, which has the highest estimated HIV prevalence in the World. More than a third of adults in that country carry the virus.
• French president Jaques Chirac, through a statement read at the conference by his health minister, proposed an international summit devoted to drug access.
• The Treatment Action Campaign, a South African group modeled on ACT UP, started the conference with a fiery rally and march demanding access to drugs. It ended the conference by announcing a defiance campaign to smuggle in fluconazole from India, where a company manufactures a generic version that costs about one-seventh what Pfizer charges for its patented version in South Africa.
• The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative proposed major reforms so that once an HIV vaccine is developed it would be made available simultaneously in the first and third worlds.
• The German pharmaceutical company Boehringher Ingelheim promised to provide its drug nevirapine free of charge for five years to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Just two doses of the drug, one given to the mother during labor, the other given to the newborn, halves the chance of passing on the virus.

Even collectively, these initiatives do not come close to providing worldwide access to care. The United Nations AIDS programme, UNAIDS, estimates that Africa alone requires $3 billion a year just to conduct prevention programmes and provide basic care, such as antibiotics. On the eve of the conference, UNAIDS director Peter Piot said that less than a tenth of that amount - peanuts - was actually being spent.

(extracted from a larger article)

Source: The Village Voice Features - Turning Point

For the full version of the article: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0029/schoofs.shtml

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