Brazil May Stop HIV Drug Access; Problems Also Reported from Argentina
Due to Brazil's financial crisis, persons currently receiving antiretroviral therapy through the public health system are expected to be cut off starting in October; expensive treatments for other diseases, including hemophilia, tuberculosis, diabetes, and malaria, are also threatened. Because of the cost of the drugs, the government would need $110 million to continue the program. For more information, contact Jorge Beloqui, beloqui@ime.usp.br .Dr. Beloqui added that AIDS deaths in Brazil dropped 38.7% from 1996 to 1998, and that Brazil produces some of the drugs locally, including AZT, ddI, and d4T. He also referred people to two PWA organizations in Brazil, giv@mandic.com.br (the group he works with) and forumongs@globonet.com.br (a forum of over 50 NGOs in the state of Sao Paulo).
Also, we have been told that the Provincial Government of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has stopped giving antiviral medications as of August 5th. For more information, contact Homer Hobi in San Francisco, hobi@humanist.org or 415-285-0606.
Note: These ominous developments are putting more pressure on drug-recycling programs, which collect unused medications for donation to doctors and clinics which otherwise could not afford them. If you know of AIDS drugs that could be used, contact either AID for AIDS, 212-337-8043 or aid4aids@aol.com, or Homer Hobi at the email or phone number above, or call Jeannie Gibbs or Mitch Abrahams at Global African AIDS Relief Initiative, 212-875-9293 (a new program largely organized at the recent PWA conference in Warsaw).
But clearly drug recycling will not solve the global access problem. We need a consensus that poor countries, or countries in a financial crisis, be allowed to obtain proprietary drugs at or near cost as an alternative to not having them at all.
