Integrated Regional Information Networks - October 26, 2000

South Africa's giant labour federation the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is to lobby foreign pharmaceutical firms to cut prices of anti-AIDS drugs and will push government to import the drugs more cheaply.

"We cannot allow pharmaceutical companies to continue to profit at the expense of the health, indeed the lives, of the majority of our people," the COSATU executive said in a statement this week. It also voiced its sympathy for the AIDS pressure group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) which recently imported the generic version of the drug fluconazole from Thailand. COSATU said it was "criminal" of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which made the drug used to treat fungal infections and a type of meningitis, to "make a quick buck at the expense of the lives of our people". It once again called on President Thabo Mbeki, who questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, to stop speculating about the causes of the disease and start providing anti-retrovirals freely to HIV pregnant women to prevent infection of their babies.

SOUTH AFRICA: Survival guide for AIDS orphans a world first

The University of Natal's psychology department has helped produce a guidebook that teaches children how to cope when they are orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The manual talks about issues such as building self-esteem and helping children cope with emergencies - for example, food shortages - that would normally only be dealt with by adults. The authors were quoted as saying that the purpose of the guide was to build resilience in children who were vulnerable because of HIV/AIDS.

SENEGAL: Government price reductions for anti-AIDS drugs

The Senegalese government has "successfully" negotiated price reductions for anti-AIDS drugs with several of the major pharmaceutical companies, 'The Wall Street Journal Europe' said this week. The report said that although the exact prices weren't being formally released, the drugs would be sold in Senegal at about 90 percent off the retail prices quoted in the US, France and other wealthy nations. "Senegal is first out of the blocks," Robert Lefebvre, a spokesman of Bristol-Myers Squibb was quoted as saying. He added that other countries, notably Uganda, were expected to announce that they, too, had successfully bargained for reduced prices from some of the companies. In May the five companies-Bristol-Myers, Merck & Co., Glaxo Wellcome , Roche Holding AG and Boehringer Ingelheim announced that they had agreed with officials at UNAIDS and the World Bank to sell their drugs in sub-Saharan Africa at prices much lower than in developed nations.

UGANDA: World Bank to boost AIDS campaign

The World Bank has given Uganda an estimated US $100 million to boost its anti-HIV/AIDS campaign, Uganda's 'New Vision' newspaper reported last Friday. "Uganda will receive between US $75 million and US $100 out of the US $700 that the World Bank allocated to all countries suffering from the AIDS epidemic south of the Sahara," Alexandre Abrantes, principal public health specialist of the Bank, was quoted as saying. Other beneficiaries include Kenya, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Ghana. "Initially the Bank and the United Nations had suggested to offer US $500 million but it decided to increase it to US $700 million," Abrantes said. Uganda is one of the few African countries which have achieved success in fighting HIV/AIDS, and HIV/AIDS prevalence in the country has dropped from 35 percent in 1980s and early 1990s to the current 9.5 percent.

SWAZILAND: HIV/AIDS infections skyrocket

HIV/AIDS infection rates in Swaziland have skyrocketed from 3.6 percent in 1992 to over 31.6 percent, the country's national AIDS programme said this week. The Swaziland National AIDS Programme (SNAP) warned that the figures were, however, probably understated because women were still being infected twice as fast as men but are often too poor too afford proper care. SNAP's latest report on the pandemic in Swaziland was based on government approved statistics from ante-natal clinics.

The report, released on Monday, said that 31.6 percent of women attending ante-natal clinics tested HIV-positive in 1998. The report said the rate of infection among expectant mothers was especially worrying as most them were relatively young. Government records indicated there are currently 2,913 women with fully-blown AIDS in the country, compared to only 2,696 males. The report also noted a significant rise in the rate of HIV-infection among children aged between five to 14 years. The report said 14 percent of males in the age group were HIV-positive, compared to 27 percent of females.

AFRICA: African countries work together to curb the spread of AIDS

Six African countries will work together to curb the spread of AIDS, news reports said this week. The initiative would involve setting up common programmes to reduce infection rates among long-distance drivers. Sidiki Coulibaly, of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) told participants of the Third Great Lakes AIDS Initiative meeting in Nairobi that long-distance truck drivers were spreading the disease at an alarming rate due to the nature of their work. He said there was need to link AIDS programmes in the region in order to come up with common strategies in tackling the epidemic. Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo would be involved in the effort.

"Inter-country cooperation in tackling HIV, like other initiatives in the region, is necessary to reduce the severity and rapid spread of the epidemic," he said. He called for the creation of a regional information and documentation centre to share information and data on AIDS.

AFRICA: AIDS cuts life expectancy

The life expectancy of Zambians with HIV/AIDS has dropped to 37.7 years from the national average of 47 years, statistics from the US Bureau of Census said this week. "Among the selected countries involved in the survey, Zambia seems to be the worst affected followed by Zimbabwe whose life expectancy has also tumbled to 37.8 and 69.9 for people dying of HIV/AIDS and those dying without HIV/AIDS respectively," the report said. Life expectancy for Swaziland, Ethiopia and Kenya for people dying with HIV/AIDS is 40.4, 45.2 and 48 respectively while for people dying without HIV/AIDS the life expectancy is currently at 57.7, 56.1 and 64.9.

AFRICA: Cosmetics company donates US $250,000 to fight AIDS

MAC Cosmetics AIDS Fund has donated US $250,000 to the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) to support seven grassroots president of MAC Cosmetics, announced the donation at the Fourth Annual Race Against Poverty Awards ceremony, which he hosted with UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York this week. "This donation was a symbol of a long-term partnership being developed with UNDP to build a larger public awareness campaign designed to fight the silence about HIV/AIDS on the Africa continent," said Demsey. "From this partnership MAC has also learned more about the complexities of fighting the disease in Africa and in particular the importance of tackling the problem from outside and inside Africa." The projects the MAC AIDS Fund is assisting include: The Swaziland AIDS Support Organisation, which advocates for the rights of people infected with HIV and carries out prevention programs in communities, schools and workplaces; the Kindlemuka Association in Mozambique, which mobilizes HIV/AIDS prevention activities, fights discrimination, helps children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and supports income-generating activities for HIV-positive women; and the Kiota Women's Health and Development Organisation in Tanzania which assists poor, young sex workers, many who are single parents and HIV-positive, and their children.
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