Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - August 19, 2006
Apiradee Treerutkuarkul & Achara Ashayagachat
"It is such a disappointment that the country has lost an opportunity to develop the anti-Aids medicine and make it internationally reputable and useable," he said after returning from the 16th International Aids Conference in Toronto, Canada. He repeated his demand that GPO improve its act, or face the sack.
The Global Fund is an independent agency financing the fight against Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, which kill over six million people each year.
Over $138 million in funding has been granted to the Public Health Ministry and the Rak Thai Foundation, a non-profit organisation working on social issues, since 2003 to develop infrastructure and essential medicines.
It aims to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV/Aids among risk groups.
Mr Anuthin yesterday told the GPO to urgently improve its drug production process and seek certification of good manufacturing practice (GMP) for its plant by June next year, to allow the agency to sell the GPO-Vir on the global market.
He also told the state-owned agency to speed up the bidding process for construction of a new anti-Aids drug plant in Pathum Thani by October, or its board would be sacked.
Bidding for the 940-million-baht plant in Pathum Thani has been delayed for more than three years due to alleged irregularities surrounding the process. The delays have upset the government and advocacy groups.
Kamol Uppakaew, adviser to the Network for People Living with HIV/Aids, said the budget cut stemmed from bureaucratic red tape and transparency problems in the GPO's drug production business.
"Actually, the GPO-Vir is of good quality. But the government failed to use the Global Fund's donations to develop the plant to meet the GMP standard," he said. "The government let a golden opportunity slip away."
The GPO produces 300,000 tablets of the anti-Aids drug per day.
It expects to increase the output to 500,000 tablets a day once the new Pathum Thani plant is approved by the WHO.
The GPO earns more than one billion baht a year from the sale of GPO-Vir to state-run hospitals.
The Network for People Living with HIV/Aids, which successfully campaigned for the introduction of anti-retroviral treatment into Thailand's public health system, was honoured with the newly-launched Red Ribbon Award at the conference in Canada for its outstanding contribution to the frontline response to HIV/Aids.
The award was shared by four other groups, from Bangladesh, Ukraine, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The winners will each get $20,000 in prize money.
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