Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Thursday May 6, 1999
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

"Bristol-Myers Squibb will commit $100 million over the next five years to try to make a difference in the lives of the women and children in the five countries in southern Africa that are among the hardest hit by HIV/AIDS," Bristol chairman and chief executive officer Charles Heimbold told a news conference.

"The money will help expand medical research in the region by the development of model programs for the management of HIV/AIDS. At the same time, it will also create a new initiative ... to fund programs to improve community education and patient support."

South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho will take part in the program. In Botswana, a quarter of the adult population has HIV or AIDS and in Namibia and Swaziland one quarter of people aged 15 to 49 are infected.

The United Nations has been working hard to enlist pharmaceutical companies to help in the battle against AIDS, which has killed 13.9 million people worldwide -- 12 million of them in Africa. More than 33 million people are infected with HIV -- 22.5 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

So far it has been a struggle but the U.N. did persuade Glaxo-Wellcome (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: GLXO.L), which sells the first-ever HIV drug AZT, to provide the drug at a discount for trials in reducing mother-to-child transmission during breast-feeding.

Drug companies say they spend billions developing HIV drugs and need to recoup those expenses.

And experts say drugs are not the answer in regions such as Africa, anyway, where even getting clean water is often a struggle, let alone remembering to take complex combinations of pills.

Bristol said its program will be aimed at training local doctors and community workers to deal with the epidemic.

"As one of the world's great pharmaceutical companies and a major developer and manufacturer of medicines for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, we feel a moral obligation to take action against this grave situation in a manner consistent with our mission to extend and enhance human life," Heimbold said.

"I wish to invite others of good will to join us to form an even more massive effort because much more is needed than we alone can do," he added.

Peter Piot, who heads the U.N.'s AIDS program, echoed the wish. "We hope that more national and international companies will join the initiative," he said via a video link from Johannesburg, where the company held a joint news conference.

"I believe this is the way we can make a difference and turn the tide in this region."

He noted that community programs had helped reduce the infection rate in countries such as Uganda and Senegal.

Women and children are an important target for the program, Piot said. "Of the 6,000 women that become infected with HIV every single day, four out of five are living in sub-Saharan Africa," he said.

Medical schools in the United States are helping in the program. The Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, which trains health professions to work in poor and neglected communities, will host 25 fellowships for southern African professionals, while the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston will use a $2.5 million grant to train African doctors and nurses.

Bristol, the number 3 drug maker in the United States, saw its first-quarter profits rise 15 percent to $1.07 billion this year on sales of drugs such as Taxol for cancer and Pravachol for cholesterol. Profits from the HIV drug Zerit (stavudine or d4t) were $161 million.

Bristol makes another commonly used HIV drug, ddI (didanosine) and its cancer drug hydroxyurea, sold under the name Hydrea, is being tested against HIV.
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