Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Monday, December 10, 2001
Glenn McKenzie, Associated Press Writer
Only 10,000 adults and 5,000 children out of the 3.5 million Nigerians said to have AIDS will be covered by the trial program, though the specific participants haven't yet been named.
A Nigerian Ministry of Health official in the capital Abuja said shipments of anti-retroviral medicines manufactured by Indian companies Cipla and Rambazy had arrived in Nigeria.
The official said, however, that unexpected "organizational delays" had slowed down the distribution of the medicines to 18 health centers where the trial is to begin. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. It was hoped that some patients could begin treatment before Christmas.
The long-awaited program is the continent's first trial of the generic anti-retroviral drugs and is hailed as one of the most ambitious to date in Africa.
The trial was initially launched by Nigeria's Health Minister in early September, but was later postponed until Monday - apparently to allow time for Nigerian pharmaceutical regulators to legalize and import the drugs.
"We are hopeful," said Ne Ekpe, an official with the National AIDS Alliance, a well-known non-government group representing people infected with the AIDS-causing virus HIV. "But we don't know anything. We remain in the dark."
According to the government, 15,000 people will be covered in the program's first year. But that is only a fraction of the millions of Nigerians believed to have the disease. Most people in Nigeria, Africa's most-populous country with 120 million people, earn just a few dollars a day and cannot afford expensive medical care.
Patients taking part in the trial are expected to pay less than half of the $350 per patient per year of the drug price paid by the government. Doctors' and other fees are also expected to be waived.
A government survey shows that the average national infection rate was 5.8 percent among people between ages 15 and 45. But in more than 30 of 85 locations studied, HIV prevalence was around 10 percent.
Of 36 million people infected with HIV around the world, 26 million live in Africa. Globally, the virus has killed 23 million people, including 17 million in sub-Saharan Africa.
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