LAGOS, August 27 (AFP) - Next month's World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun will be a critical date for Africa's spiralling population of AIDS-HIV sufferers, Nigerian doctors said Tuesday.
Developing nations are expected to argue at the WTO that access to cheaper, "generic" antiretroviral drugs is a matter of survival in poverty-stricken areas already beset by a deadly pandemic.
But pharmaceutical firms argue that only by retaining exclusive rights to their discoveries, and thus earning royalties on every dose prescribed, can they fund future research.
The debate has been revived as Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, faces a AIDS timebomb after a pilot scheme to distribute generic anti-retrovirals failed to make an broad impact.
"The pharmaceutical companies owe it to the rest of the world to lower their prices. They spend more on marketing than they do on research and development," said Dr Remi Kalejaiye on Monday.
Kalejaiye, an AIDS specialist at Lagos' military hospital, told AFP that foreign firms kept the latest drugs for their profitable home markets and prevented Nigeria from producing its own.
"Africa should have followed the example of Brazil and insisted on a clause exempting itself from trade laws in the case of 'dire medical emergency' before signing up to the WTO," he said.
Experts believe that Nigeria now stands on the brink of just such a dire emergency, and some warn that AIDS could eventually cripple the economy and endanger national stability.
The US Central Intelligence Agency issued a report last year listing Nigeria -- home to 126 million people -- as one of five densely-populated countries facing an AIDS explosion.
The National Intelligence Council report warned that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could afflict 10 to 15 million Nigerians by the year 2010, triple today's estimate.
Along with Ethiopia, Russia, India, and China, Nigeria is expected to struggle to cope with the explosion.
"Nigeria and Ethiopia will be the hardest hit... decimating key government and business elites, undermining growth, and discouraging foreign investment," the report warned.
"Both countries are key to regional stability, and the rise in HIV/AIDS will strain their governments," it added.
But whatever the result of the Cancun discussions, Nigeria's limited experience of generic AIDS drugs shows that they won't be the hoped for panacea without better health-care adminstration.
In April an AFP reporter visited Lagos University Teaching Hospital on a Tuesday, AIDS treatment day, to find sufferers queuing for drugs, many being turned back by overworked staff.
"For a month now we have not been able to accept new patients, because we lack medicine and money," said hospital pharmacist Olabisi Opanuga.
"The problem is enormous, and we won't succeed without international assistance," he said.
Doctor Charles Okany said: "Tuesday is an impossible day."
According to Omololu Falobi, head of a group of journalists fighting the spread of AIDS, only about 8,000 of the estimated 3.5 million sufferers currently use the government programme.
Under the programme the lucky few are administered Indian-made generic drugs -- less efficient than the lastest Western remedies in controlling the virus, but still better than nothing.
If Nigeria gets the go-ahead from the international community it could start to import these drugs for the mass of the population, or even begin producing them itself.
But, Falobi and others warn, even then Nigeria would have to radically overhaul its health infrastructure and funding to take advantage of the concession.
Under the pilot scheme, he complains, to be eligible to take part patients must pay 6,500 naira (50 dollars) -- or more than a month's average Nigerian wages -- for an initial bloodtest.
Even once a sufferer is on board, they must pay 1,000 naira per month for the drugs, which enjoy a monthly 9,000 naira government subsidy but remain out of the reach of most Nigerians.
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