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Task force will lobby drug companies to implement promised price cuts
Kaiser Daily HIV report
2000-06-09

UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation will meet next month with representatives from five of the world's top pharmaceutical firms to pressure them to implement promised price cuts for anti-AIDS drugs and to ask for technical assistance in developing a medical infrastructure.

UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation will meet next month with representatives from five of the world's top pharmaceutical firms to pressure them to implement promised price cuts for anti-AIDS drugs and to ask for technical assistance in developing a medical infrastructure. The drug companies agreed last month to make their HIV treatments affordable to millions of people with HIV in Africa. South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said, If indeed they are thinking of reducing the cost of drugs, they must understand it is not just antiretroviral, it is all drugs, but in particular to manage opportunistic infections. She added, They should [also] be willing to assist us in developing the infrastructure ...particularly developing the capacities of our laboratories so that we would then be able to monitor the patients that are being treated. According to Tshabalala-Msimang, the South African government has refused to offer AZT in public clinics because of its prohibitive cost. It costs 70,000 South African rand ($10,100) a year to treat one AIDS patient and I don't have the budget with only two billion rand a year, she said (Source: Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS report, 7/6/00)

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