Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Friday, November 29, 2002
Tamora Vidaillet

Sufferers like Lao Ren believe they will only ever be able to rely on free trials of foul-tasting traditional Chinese medicine from select HIV clinics.

When the first domestic drugs cocktail hits the market from as early as next month, little will change for the poor, mostly country folk at the heart of China's crushing HIV threat who earn an average 2,250 yuan ($270) a year, according to the latest figures from state media.

With a monthly income of around 700 yuan from selling snacks at street corners in Beijing, Lao Ren cannot afford a year's supply of the home-grown cocktail, set to cost between 3,000 and 5,000 yuan.

Foreign drugs sold by giants like Bristol-Myers Squibb for around $10,000 a year are even more of a pipe dream for China's estimated one million people with HIV, a figure the United Nations says could soar to 10 million by the end of the decade.

For those with the money, smuggled western drugs that change hands deep in the shadows offer some solace.

But for the vast majority, Lao Ren says, death is a matter of time.

"Prices will have to reach levels closer to 100 yuan a month for people like me to afford it," said Lao, who contracted HIV in the central province of Henan from tainted blood a few years ago.

"Most people with HIV can only wait it out, until they die."

MODEST BEGINNINGS

China, which woke up to a potential HIV crisis publicly for the first time last year, has joined an international debate on making drugs more accessible in the developing world.

Since then, the government has negotiated with foreign drug giants to bring down costs--by at least 20% last December alone--and spearheaded domestic production while respecting international patent laws.

Prices for China's first AIDS cocktail should fall as production gathers steam, said Li Jinliang, head of Shanghai Desano Biopharmaceutical Co Ltd., which is producing the drugs.

An official with Northeast China Pharmaceuticals Group Company, reported earlier this year to have produced China's first AIDS drug, said it had not put its product on the market yet but had donated 110,000 tablets to the Ministry of Health.

Prices of foreign HIV drugs are expected to fall further when the government slashes duties on imported AIDS medicine, industry sources say.

Experts applaud such steps, but say they are but a modest beginning as China braces for a potential HIV explosion as the virus that can cause AIDS spreads from high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users to the general population.

The government spends only 6% of one yuan per person per year to prevent the spread of HIV when at least half a yuan would be needed to do the job, according to the state-run Beijing Morning Post.

More work also needed to be done on reducing the stigma attached to the virus so that those who need treatment come forward and get tested, said UN Population Fund Beijing representative Siri Tellier.

"It's not something that's done overnight to give people access," she said. "Because one thing is having the drugs, the next is finding the people who need it."
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