LAGOS, Dec 6 (AFP) - In a first for Africa, the Nigerian government says it will on December 10 launch a trial of cheap generic anti-AIDS drugs, imported from India, but doubts are growing about whether it is ready.
Deputy Health Minister Amina Ndalolo told journalists last week that the government would launch the trial as she announced that the numbers living with the disease here had risen to 3.47 million from 2.7 million two years ago.
The government will start treatment on December 10 at 18 centres across the country with a "limited number" of patients for the first three months to ensure the medical staff involved can handle the procedures, she said.
The scheme will then be scaled up, gradually, to 100 centres and cover 10,000 patients in the first year, she added.
But with just days to go, the drugs had still not arrived at either of the two Lagos hospitals chosen to be among the 18 centres for the launch and no information had been given to staff.
"As I am talking to you, neither has my hospital received the drugs nor have I been told when and how to administer them," the head of the haematology department and leader of the HIV/AIDS team in the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Dr Charles Okany, told AFP.
At the main military hospital in Lagos, another designated treatment centre, Dr Remi Kalejaiye said no drugs had been delivered to date.
"Hopefully, will we will start the trial on December 10. But as at today, we have not received the drugs. We have sent a message to Abuja to let them know our problem," he said.
The trials are supposed to lead eventually to a full-scale treatment programme involving both state-provided and commercially imported generic drugs, bought at 350 dollars a year per person from two Indian firms instead of the tens of thousands of dollars per year paid for AIDS drugs from Western companies.
Elsewhere in Africa, Botswana, which has a per capita income ten times that of Nigeria, has already started to provide free western drugs to people living with AIDS, but no other country has tried free trial treatment with imported generic drugs.
The South African government won the right to import generic drugs earlier this year but has so far refused to freely distribute them nationwide because of fears the drugs would be incorrectly administered and other concerns.
AIDS activists in Nigeria fear that despite the talk, little is happening here.
The launch of the trial was first announced in September and then put off. It has been announced again, coinciding with a major AIDS summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, due to start December 9, and activists fear the timing is maybe more than coincidental.
Mohammed Farouk, the head of the Nigeria AIDS Alliance, told AFP that people living with AIDS were fed up of the delays and threatened a street protest if the trials failed to start on time.
"The government told us on December 1 in Abuja that it will launch the trial on Monday (December 10)," he said.
"If it does not, we will embark on a street protest to the National Assembly and the presidency, he said.
Farouk, a former military officer confirmed that the drugs had arrived in the country and commended the government efforts in bringing them in.
"I have seen them myself. I must commend the efforts of the federal government in importing the drugs," he said.
But he too admitted to fears over how effective they would be.
The government has yet to launch any major AIDS prevention campaign, activists noted.
011206
AF011282
Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2001 - All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission.. http://www.afp.com/
ÆGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2001. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2001 - ÆGiS. ÆGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on ÆGIS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of ÆGIS and the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
