Activists call on UN to act on AIDS drugs

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Hundreds of AIDS activists sent a petition to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday, appealing to the world body to help developing and less developed countries obtain access to generic versions of patented drugs.

Grouped in the Indonesian Movement for Increased Access to HIV/AIDS Therapy, representatives of HIV-positive people, doctors and health workers, non-governmental organizations and journalists from across the country urged the UN to block moves by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to ban producers of generic antiretroviral drugs from exporting the life-saving medicines to needy countries.

"...poor countries are unable to produce affordable life- saving drugs on their own ... As a developing country, Indonesia is also in a dire need of access to affordable antiretroviral drugs since the recent financial and economic crises have had adverse consequences for the welfare of the people," the letter reads.

The WTO acknowledged last year that trading rules regulating intellectual property rights must not serve as barriers to the promotion and protection of public health.

It allowed developing nations to produce generic drugs in times of medical crisis but barred them from exporting the drugs.

The director of the Dharmais National Cancer Center, Samsuridjal Djauzi, said that the export ban could endanger the lives of people living with AIDS in developing countries that had inadequate or no pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity.

He said that such generic antiretroviral drugs had made the viral load in more than 100 HIV-positive people undetectable.

"The drugs also bring clinical improvements for HIV-positive people. By taking a combination of antiretroviral drugs, they experience an increase in appetite, gain some weight, and no longer suffer from fevers or infections. They can lead a normal and productive life with such medicines," Samsuridjal said.

A HIV-positive person in Indonesia would need to spend up to Rp 700,000 per month on generic drugs while the patented ones cost up to Rp 3.9 million.

Currently, there are 350 HIV-infected people in the country who have access to the generic life-saving drugs while some 85,000 others cannot afford the treatment.