InterPress News Service (IPS); Monday, 8 July 1996.
Yvette Collymore

Yet, AIDS activists attending the Jul 7-12 conference in Vancouver, say that even if scientists do manage to come up with a therapy to combat the disease, there would be little cause for celebration among the majority of the world's HIV carriers.

Only the rich would survive. Millions infected with the disease in the developing world simply would not be able to afford the treatment, say activists.

Preliminary testing of the new drugs "look great for the very few people who can get them", says Eric Sawyer, founder of the U.S.-based AIDS activists group Act Up. "But most people with AIDS can't even get aspirin."

Nine out of ten people infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) live in the developing world, the majority on the African continent home to two-thirds of 21 million reported cases of HIV/AIDS.

Activists worry that the pharmaceutical companies that have invested heavily in research on a drug to combat AIDS, will put a price tag that will be way beyond what most can afford.

Figures circulating at this week's conference range from 12,000 to 16,000 dollars per year for one person's treatment, and it is not yet clear how long a patient would have to take the drug or what would be the dosage.

Compare those projected price tags to the average per capita income of 580 dollars in Tanzania, where the average income of the poorest 20 per cent of the nation's population is 70 dollars.

But even before counting the cost, some researchers are cautioning against expecting too much too soon, in terms of a cure.

A wealth of research on anti-retroviral drugs will be presented and scrutinised by various scientists attending the annual gathering which has in the past offered hope, but no concrete breakthroughs on a cure for the disease.

Still, with hopes highest now since the first recorded case of AIDS some 15 years ago, the projected high costs of any treatment has thrown a damper on the pre-conference hype.

"To the drug companies, people with AIDS say 'it's time to drop your prices'," said Sawyer, who warned that if the price of treatment was not in the reach of the majority, pharmaceutical firms should expect citizens' groups to press their governments to regulate prices.

"No compassion, no peace" read one Act Up slogan at Sunday's opening ceremony.

Activists also complain that most of the research is concentrated in industrialised nations where the incidence of AIDS and HIV infection is much lower than in the developing world.

"Ignoring the research needs of 90 per cent of the epidemic is not only unethical, it is irrational," said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

"What keeps me awake at night is the growing AIDS care gap, especially between the developed and developing world," he added. "...so many people all over the world are without access to even the simple drugs they need for opportunistic infections, far less to anti-retroviral drugs."

African officials say AIDS is lowering the life expectancy of people across the continent. By the year 2010, average life expectancy in Uganda, where less than half the population has access to basic health services, is expected to drop from 44.7 to 32 years even as the economy has shown signs of improvement.

Similarly, there are projections that if current trends continue, life expectancy in Zambia will drop from 48.6 to 33 years.

"Why in spite of a breakthrough (in research), pricing remains a major barrier," asked South Africa's Minister of Health, Dr. Nkosazana Zuma, who delivered the keynote address at Sunday's opening ceremony.

Such speeches were well received by activists who however turned a deaf ear to the address of Canadian Health Minister David Dingwall to protest that government's cancellation of its AIDS strategy programme. The Canadian government is banking on the business community to pick up the slack.

But money for treatment is not the only concern of HIV carriers. The social stigma attached to AIDS also remains a major hurdle for those infected with the virus, and this is the case in both the industrialised and developing world.

The theme of the conference 'One World, One Hope', say organisers, represents a vision of a future where the cycle of intolerance and stigmatisation is broken.

Much work still needs to be done. Besides being shunned and marginalised from society, persons infected with the HIV virus are likely to be stereotyped.

For example, when first discovered, the disease was associated only with homosexual activity. Today, the rate of heterosexual transmission is on the increase. Even married couples can contract the disease if one of the partners has had an extra-marital affair with an HIV carrier.

Blood transfusions involving contaminated blood has also caused the spread of the disease.

Still, because the HIV virus is transmitted mainly through sexual contact or injected drug use, Doreen Millman, a 64-year-old HIV infected woman from northern Vancouver, finds herself constantly asked about how she became infected.

"It just does not matter," she said to wide applause as she addressed delegates at the opening ceremony. "I am not ashamed of who I am," she emphasised.

She is among an estimated 8.8 million women worldwide infected by HIV/AIDS, according to UNAID and World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics which show there are 12.2 million men and 800,000 children who have the disease.(END/IPS/WD-HE/YC/CPG/96)

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