OUAGADOUGOU, Dec 13 (AFP) - African countries rounded up a conference on AIDS here Thursday with appeals for further international help to cut the cost of anti-retroviral drugs against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
The calls were made by doctors, scientists, policymakers and community workers after a five-day get-together in Ouagadougou, capital of the western African state of Burkina Faso, to assess the pandemic that is cutting a swathe across Africa.
In a list of recommendations, they called on the international community to subsidise the cost of buying the potent new drugs and encourage the local production of cheap generic equivalents.
And they urged politicians to encourage policies aimed at preventing HIV infection and fighting against social exclusion for people who have the virus.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's representative at the talks, Stephen Lewis, bluntly told western countries but also African nations themselves to contribute more money to combat the crisis.
"Let me tell you what we haven't heard," he told delegates.
"We haven't heard where the money is coming from to stop the pandemic... we all know it can be stopped."
He added "Africa needs five billion dollars a year to fight the pandemic. At the moment, we're spending a pathetic 10 percent of that."
There are an estimated 28.1 million people in sub-Saharan Africa with HIV or full-blown AIDS, and in parts of southern Africa more than a third of the adult population are infected.
Although the continent has only 10 percent of the world's population, it has more than 70 percent of the global tally of 40 million HIV/AIDS victims.
Anti-retrovirals have sprung to the top of the political agenda in world health this year.
A "cocktail" of molecules that block the cascade of processes that encourage the virus to invade cells, they have been lauded for suppressing the viral presence to negligible levels, allowing many people to conduct almost normal lives.
The drawbacks have been side-effects in some people, as well as their cost, which has been so prohibitively high that only the wealthy West can afford them.
The picture began to change this year when the pharmaceutical industry, in the face of a powerful protest campaign, began to slash its prices for developing countries. Prices in Africa vary, but at the bottom level are now around 350 dollars (390 euros) per person for a year's treatment, compared with 3,500 dollars a year ago.
In addition, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) members last month weakened the drug majors' grip on patents by agreeing in principle that countries with a pharmaceutical industry could manufacture generics in the event of a national health crisis.
Many voices in Ouagadougou demanded that the prices fall further, or the drugs be offered for free.
But many delegates working at grass-roots level said that lower prices are not in themselves enough.
Only 30,000 Africans now get the retrovirals. For millions to get them, these experts said, countries must urgently build a proper medical infrastructure to ensure that the medications are not misused and cause resistance to them to build up.
"You have to have the structure to cope," said French Red Cross AIDS administrator Lucile Astel.
Lewis reminded delegates that their countries last year had vowed to spend 15 percent of their national budgets on health.
"That hour of commitment must have substance. The target of spending 15 percent of total country budget on health must be met."
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