Inter Press Service - October 13, 1999
Sandra Simms

Wrong, says the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) which is on a move to make the anti-viral drug AZT used in the treatment of the disease more available and affordable, particularly to pregnant women carrying the HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - in some Caribbean and Latin American countries.

Medical researchers believe that administering AZT to pregnant women with AIDS can significantly reduce the chances of the virus being transmitted to their unborn babies.

PAHO's Caribbean programme coordinator, Veta Brown says the project is being tried first in Brazil where the government has already invested large sums of money to fight infectious diseases.

"We're very much at the embryonic stage of this but we re purchasing not only drugs for AIDS, but also TB (Tuberculosis) and malaria in particular. We want to see whether with bulk purchasing and having these drugs in the hospitals and health sector and community, we could reduce cost,÷ she says.

Arlene Husbands, programme manager of "AIDS Information" in Barbados, says government spent some 150,000 dollars in providing care for 32 HIV infected pregnant women over the last few years with the result that more than half of the babies born to those women had not contracted the disease.

Just last year the large drug manufacturer, Glaxo Wellcome PLC announced plans to slash the price of AZT for pregnant women in poor countries to help minimise the spread of the deadly disease to babies.

Statistics from UNAIDS, the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, show that about 600, 000 children worldwide died in 1997 of AIDS contracted from their mothers. UNAIDS also noted that 550, 000 infants are infected at birth every year.

It was in 1994 that researchers found that administering AZT to pregnant women with HIV for several months prior to birth could reduce the chances of transmission of the virus to infants by two- thirds.

But in Barbados, there is one concern about the plan - that is, that some women carrying the virus will knowingly get pregnant to gain access to the AZT treatment.

For the first half of 1998 four of the 16 pregnant women who tested positive for HIV knew of their status before they became pregnant, while in 1997, 10 of the 20 pregnant women who were positive were aware that they were carrying the virus before they became pregnant.

Of the women now attending ante-natal clinics, 13 have been tested positive for HIV.

Former chairman of the National Advisory Council on AIDS, Dr. Carol Jacobs says when the Ministry of Health first discussed the idea of offering AZT to HIV positive pregnant women, they considered that women might become pregnant as a way of ensuring treatment, but her organisation has made it clear that AZT would be administered only while the woman was pregnant.

Head of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital s Paediatrics Department, Dr. Anne St. John also explains that while AZT is given for a number of weeks in pregnancy, it will not reduce complications from disease in the mother.

Meanwhile, some women's groups say the proposal to make AZT more accessible to pregnant women is a welcome development because the health of women carrying the virus deteriorates faster than men similarly affected.

In Barbados AIDS continues to claim the lives of a growing number of persons. Of the 55 AIDS-related deaths for the first half of 1998, 34 were male and 21 female. Statistics from the Ministry of Health reveal that between January and April of that year, there were 84 new AIDS cases reported.

In the three-month period between last October and December, there were 35 deaths from the disease.

Senior Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Elizabeth Ferdinand says AIDS is having a serious impact on all age groups. "No one, neither males or females, is exempt and all age groups are affected," she says. "Once you are sexually active or you put yourself in a risk category, you are vulnerable, so anyone can get AIDS."

Since the first reported case of AIDS in 1984 in Barbados, there have been 856 deaths, while 876 persons have tested positive for the virus.

According to a recent report issued by the United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS, the disease has claimed the lives of 13.9 million people with 2.5 million dying in 1998 alone. It also stated that 33 million people worldwide have the disease, with some 1.7 million of the cases being in the Caribbean and Latin America. (END/IPS/ss/cb/99)
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