LAGOS, Dec 10 (AFP) - In a military hospital in Nigeria's largest city, doctors and patients lined up Monday, awaiting the delivery of cheap imported generic AIDS drugs promised by the government.
"Of course I want to get these drugs. How can I afford the drugs they get now?" fumed a 46-year-old HIV-positive woman outside the Federal Military Hospital, in Lagos' Ikoyi district.
"At those prices, no one but the rich can afford those drugs," said the woman, a civil servant in the Lagos State education ministry, who declined to be named.
The AIDS drugs currently available in Nigeria are the branded sort made and sold in Western countries which cost almost 75,000 naira, or 660 dollars, per month.
In a country with an average per capita income of just 300 dollars, that price puts them way out of the reach of all but a tiny minority.
The woman, and a handful of others who had come to the hospital Monday, said they had heard the Nigerian government planned to conduct a trial of cheap generic AIDS drugs imported from India at a cost of 350 dollars per patient per year.
Under the government programme, which was officially launched Monday with the delivery of some drugs to holding centres, to be passed on to the hospitals in coming days, the drugs will be made available to a limited number of people in 18 federal health centres at a heavily subsidised cost of 1,000 naira (nine dollars) per month.
Once it is fully under way, the programme will be extended to around 100 centres and 10,000 patients.
The idea is that once the trial has been run for a year, commercial importation of the drugs will start.
In total, Nigeria currently has some 3.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS and a crying need for more vigorous prevention and treatment.
Remi Kalejaiye, the senior AIDS doctor at the military hospital in Ikoyi, told AFP he believed the distribution of the drugs to the patients would start soon.
"We have been told we are one of the centres that will be administering this trial. We have received the paperwork, but we are still waiting for the drugs," he said.
He said the drugs for his clinic have arrived at a federal medical warehouse in Lagos and would likely be distributed in a few days.
In the capital Abuja and in the largest northern city, Kano, it was the same story.
Across the continent, more than 28.1 million have HIV/AIDS and only a tiny minority can afford to pay the prices paid in the West.
The generic drugs, which have almost the same medical effect as the branded ones, are produced at a fraction of the cost by lesser known drugs companies in India and others in Brazil, overriding the Western companies' patents.
In April this year, the South African government won the right to import generic drugs but, despite growing pressure from AIDS activists, has so far failed to implement a programme such as that starting in Nigeria.
Those who take part in the trial must first pass certain medical tests -- checking their blood count and liver functions -- and will then be treated on a first come, first served basis, Kalejaiye said.
"This hospital has itself been administering branded drugs for years to a minority who can afford them. We are very excited about this trial making the generic drugs available to more people," Kalejaiye said.
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