Pharma philanthropy unable to solve crisis

Date: 01/12/05

The World Health Organization (WHO) set a target of putting three million AIDS patients on life-preserving medicines by the end of this year.

There is a neat, albeit depressing, symmetry in the 3m: it corresponds to the number who have died of AIDS so far this year.

The WHO has conceded that it will fall far short of the target: only about 1m will get their needed medicines. This means that the overwhelming majority of the 40m people in the world who are HIV-positive have to make do without treatment.

The manufacturers of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs claim that they are making progress in ensuring that their products are being delivered. Merck Sharp and Dohme has a scheme where it offers drugs to poor countries at prices at which it does not make a profit.

A European Commission paper published earlier this year suggested that philanthropy by the pharmaceutical industry did not provide a sustainable solution to the AIDS crisis. Merck's Jeffrey Sturchio does not agree: "Our offers have been taken up by 76 poor countries and we don't see any reason why this shouldn't be sustainable."

Fernando Pascual, a pharmacist with humanitarian aid group Médecins sans Fronti¿res, shares the Commission's opinion. "If we are talking about 40m infected with HIV/ AIDS, then donations will not solve the problem," he says.

The shortage of medicines is especially acute when it comes to children born with HIV. Philanthropy, says Pascual, has not led to ARVs being specially tailored to children. "In Africa, you are often talking about a setting with no electricity - so you cannot keep medicines in a fridge - and no clean water. And because the parents of children are often dead to AIDS, you often see a grandmother coming with two or three children. Explaining how you give treatment with a syringe is too complicated."

Today (1 December), the European Parliament is to adopt a report which berates a Commission plan for waiving patents on the drugs needed to treat people with major killers such as AIDS.

Originally proposed by Pascal Lamy, when he was trade commissioner, the plan is aimed at implementing a 2003 decision by the World Trade Organization (WTO). That decision set out the circumstances under which countries without the capacity to make enough medicines for their own citizens could issue compulsory licences for importing copied or 'generic' versions of drugs still under patent.

A Parliamentary report drafted by Belgian Liberal Johan Van Hecke says it is wrong that the scheme should apply only to drugs destined for the 148 member countries of the WTO. In effect, that could exclude a non-WTO country like Russia, even though it has a burgeoning AIDS crisis.

Commission officials say that they are willing to address the criticism made by MEPs and that they will probably respond favourably to calls for the scheme to be extended beyond WTO members.

Article reports on the target of putting three million AIDS patients on life-preserving medicines by the end of 2005 which the World Health Organization (WHO) set itself. Article is part of a European Voice Special Report: 'HIV/AIDS'.