HIV Drugs for All Would Cost $60 Billion
Wednesday, July 12, 2000 By Patricia Reaney
DURBAN, S. Africa — At least 12 million people with HIV worldwide need drugs to suppress the virus and this would cost an estimated $60 billion a year at current prices, a London-based think tank said on Tuesday.
The figure is less than a quarter of the United States' annual military budget, but would break the banks of the developing nations where the AIDS epidemic is taking its heaviest toll, according to the Panos Institute.
The non-profit organisation, which reports on developmental issues, said in Zambia alone the drugs would cost $2 billion for the first year and would rise to $2.7 billion by the third year, or up to 76 percent of the country's gross national product (GNP).
"Worldwide the cost of providing antiretroviral therapy at cut prices for all those who need them would be as high as $60 billion a year," Martin Foreman, the director of the London-based Panos AIDS Programme, told a news conference.
The estimated costs are based on 40 percent of people currently living with the virus requiring treatment.
The author of a report presented at the XIIIth International AIDS Conference said the cost of the treatments was only part of the problem.
Building up national health systems and providing skilled personnel to make sure the complicated drug regimens are administered and monitored properly would cost additional billions.
"There are too few doctors, treating too many patients with too few drugs," Foreman said.
Panos, one of the first groups to recognise the impact of the epidemic in poor nations, applauded the promise of five leading drug companies to cut the prices of their AIDS drugs for developing nations, as well as other company initiatives.
Foreman said it was a start but in addition to cutting drug prices other means of providing and administering drugs must be considered.
"Prices must fall by 95 percent for the drugs to be accessible to the majority of people," Foreman said, adding that it was theoretically possible but highly improbable to provide the necessary treatments in the near future.
Each year more people would need the HIV therapies because many of the tens of millions of people living with the virus are newly infected.
"The numbers would continue to rise for several years and would only decrease after prevention programmes lead to a decline in infection rates," he said.
The report argues that compulsory licensing could resolve many of the issues around the high price of antiretroviral drugs.
Compulsory licensing allows governments in specific circumstances to grant the right to manufacture or commercialise a patented drug to another company. Drugs produced in-country would be cheaper due to reduced production costs and profit margins.
But most drug companies oppose it on the grounds that it reduces profits and incentives for research.
Debt relief, including commercial debt owed to foreign governments and international institutions, Foreman added, is another possible solution.
"An accelerated approach to debt relief, combined with improvements in health services and reduced costs of drugs, could go some way towards getting effective treatment to those who need it," the report said. |
