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| The Youth Of The Nation!! |
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| Act Now!!! |
Treat the People
Why is providing AIDS treatment so important?
AIDS medications have made what would otherwise be a fatal disease in the US and other wealthy nations into a serious, yet treatable one. People living with AIDS can lead productive lives. The medications include the 'triple cocktail' that kills the HIV virus itself, as well as drugs to treat various infections that often come with AIDS.
5 million of the 27 million Africans with HIV infection could benefit from these medications, based on the treatment guidelines of the World Health Organization. Yet, in Africa and other impoverished areas of the world these drugs are largely unavailable. That's mainly because the people there, and their governments, are too impoverished to buy them. Instead of looking forward to productive lives and, if they are parents, living to raise their children, people living with AIDS in these areas usually die within a few months or years. Because AIDS is having a catastrophic impact on their societies, Africans, Latin Americans, Asians, and others are calling for access to affordable AIDS medications. People with AIDS are at the forefront of campaigns calling for access to affordable medications. |
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Condom Education at an HIV/AIDS Clinic in Ghana.
© CARE 1999 (photo by Cynthia Glocker) |
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Isn't prevention the answer?
Prevention and education are vitally important. That's why the Global Fund and other programs we support will finance effective prevention programs as well as treatment programs.
But, experience has shown that both treatment and prevention are needed -- they go hand-in-hand. In fact, when the disease is a certain death sentence and considered something to be ashamed about, people feel discouraged from getting tested for the virus. If treatment is available people are more motivated to get tested. Then, when people come in for testing there's a perfect opportunity to provide counselling about how to take care of themseles and protect others. Experience has shown that making treatment available does not undermine efforts to encourage people to end risky behavior.
Plus, AIDS medications can cut by as much as 50% the transmission of HIV from mother to child though breast milk, saving many children from almost certain death. Since these medications are not widely available, approximately 70,000-100,000 cases of mother-to-child transmission occur each year in South Africa alone, another 600,000 in the rest of Africa.
Do you propose just dropping pills all over Africa and other regions?
Not at all. We want to make sure that cost is not a barrier to countries gaining access to life-extending medications and using them carefully and effectively. It's true that Africa and other regions lack sufficient health care profesionals, hospitals and clinics, and these problems should be fully addressed. But experience in Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere has shown that AIDS medications can be safely provided even in areas where little infrastructure exists.
What infrastructure that does exist -- Africa has a network of mission hospitals, for instance -- should be used to the fullest. Millions of people with AIDS are dying in (or within reach of) hospitals and clinics in Africa and elsewhere that can, in fact, dispense prescriptions.
Aren't AIDS medications complicated to take?
Actually, an effective set of medications is not overly complex to take. An effective combination of medications typically involves three pills, taken all together, twice-daily. The pills do not usually have to be taken with food. Field experience in Ivory Coast, Brazil and Haiti, has shown that patients can take their medications correctly and on time.
How can we make AIDS medications affordable?
Pharmaceutical companies patent their medicines, and during their 20-year patent monopoly they can set prices that, especially in the case of AIDS treatments, are astronomical. Much of the profit made goes into advertising and marketing. In 1999, the ten largest drug companies made $28.3 billion in profit.
But, competition from generic versions of medications can cut the prices of medications dramatically. Activists have campaigned so that market competition from generic versions of AIDS medications could start bringing down the prices of the medications sold in impoverished countries. The drug companies would still earn enough to defray any costs they might have incurred in developing the medications, since they would still be selling their patented AIDS medications in wealthy countries where the full market price would prevail.
Aren't drug manufacturers now lowering their prices?
The drug donations and price discounts are encouraging, but they are still benefitting only a small number of people. Time-consuming negotiations over pricing has continued, drug by drug, company by company, country by country, and what the drug companies give they can easily take away. Getting low cost medications from a generic manufacturer would help avoid this problem.
Is public pressure doing any good?
Public pressure, brought on by AIDS activists, religious groups and many others, has had a huge impact in recent years. People living with AIDS have been at the forefront of the campaign. Worldwide protests forced drug companies to drop a lawsuit that had tried to block South Africa's access to cheaper generic drugs.
It's also had an impact on the US government. For years the U.S. government threatened countries wanting generic AIDS drugs with trade sanctions and economic isolation. But, at an international trade meeting last year (the WTO meeting in Qatar) African governments and others, backed up by AIDS activists, had an important success. They successfully bargained for the right to allow local drug manufacturers to produce generic versions of patented drugs. They agreement was that these medications could be produced for the local market in order to protect public health. Public pressure played a critical role in getting this agreement.
But, many of the affected countries do not have any drug manufacturing companies at all. So, negotiations are underway to determine whether some countries could import drugs made by generic producers in other countries. A country such as Uganda that does not have the capacity to manufacture its own AIDS medications might be permitted to purchase them from producers of cheaper, generic medicines in, say, Brazil.
How does this relate to trade agreements?
One problem currently being confronted by AIDS activists and their allies is that international trade deals being negotiated by the U.S. would undermine the success achieved at the WTO meeting. That's because these trade agreements would include provisions that would increase the rights of drug companies and other patent holders at the expense of people living with AIDS.
For example, Brazilís successful AIDS treatment program, which relies heavily on free access to generic versions of AIDS drugs, would be almost impossible to duplicate in Latin America if trade agreements like the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) were designed in the way currently being considered (under the so-called "Fast Track" proposal).
Will impoverished countries be able to afford low-cost generic medications?
With lots of outside help from wealthy governments and others countries can begin to purchase these medications. Using large-scale production, these medications could be sold for as little as $200 per person per year, just 2% of the price paid in wealthy countries. That is still too expensive for most people living with AIDS, since for many of them $200 is half or more of their yearly income -- so outside assistance to defray the costs of medicines will still be necessary.
Can multinational companies play a role in securing treatment?
Yes, large companies operating in Africa and elsewhere can provide health plans to their employees that include coverage for AIDS treatment. Yet, unfortunately, multinational corporations to date have largely failed to provide medical coverage or treatment of HIV and opportunistic infections for employees and their family members.
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Why does Debt involved in this matter......
What does debt have to do with the AIDS crisis?
The countries most heavily impacted by AIDS have precious little money to devote to programs for AIDS prevention, treatment, and care. One of the reasons is that many of them have devoted millions upon millions of dollars to repaying back old loans. They owe the money to wealthy creditors like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as some wealthy governments.
The debt crisis is real: Zambia, where 20 percent of the adult population is infected with HIV, spends $76 million on its health budget and $89 million on debt service to the IMF and World Bank.
Isn't it their fault that they are so in debt in the first place? |
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Nigeria pays US $1.7 billion in debt service every year to rich western creditors, eleven times its annual health budget. Illustration courtesy of Jubilee 2000 UK Campaign. |
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Borrowing countries do bear some of the blame for the extent of the debt crisis. But, there are also many factors causing the debt crisis that were beyond their control.
These included shifts in the world economy that made the products of these countries much less profitable, as well as natural disasters like droughts and floods. It's also true much of the debt was taken on by unelected dictators -- and these dictators did not consult the people of their countries prior to borrowing so much money.
Lenders, like the US and other wealthy governments, also bear a lot of the blame. They provided loans to governments who did not represent their people. They encouraged borrowing countries to follow rigid, top-down economic development and trade strategies which did not work out and led the countries to just borrowing even more.
These are some of the reasons why we say the debt burden is unjust. The important thing to keep in mind is that it's people struggling to stop AIDS and other crises who have ended up bearing the debt burden, and that's why they are calling for debt cancellation.
How can cancelling the debt help stop AIDS?
Governments are becoming more accountable to their people -- and AIDS groups and others are watching what they are doing. With some limited debt relief available to them as a result of the Jubilee 2000 Campaign, countries have been able to devote more resources to fighting AIDS. For example, Malawi received an initial cut in debt repayments of 30%, or $28 million. These funds financed the purchase of critical drugs for hospitals and health centers, hiring extra staff and support in primary health centers, and training new nurses. Uganda, Cameroon, and other countries have done the same, and communities hit by AIDS have seen the results.
Why isn't the debt relief countries are getting good enough?
The debt relief currently available is still so little that, of the 26 countries receiving it, 19 are still paying out more in debt repayments than they are spending on health care. Some countries needing debt cancellation have been left out. Nigeria, for example, pays US$1.7 billion in debt service every year to rich western creditors, eleven times its annual health budget.
The other big problem with the current program is that is dominated by the creditors, which is a bit like having loan sharks and bad credit card companies running the world's bankruptcy courts. One of the results is that AIDS groups, groups of women and farmers, and others who should have a say in economic planning and budgeting get left out of important decisions.
What sort of budget decisions matter to people fighting AIDS?
Whether health budgets ought to be increased or if health and water systems should be run for profit by private companies (like HMOs in the US) are issues that should be carefully considered, with input from everyone concerned. According to a recent report by Save the Children, turning over health care to private companies has excluded whole communities from access to care and lowered health service quality.
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Presidents, Prime Ministers, Members of Congress or Parliament have the power to deliver on these demands. They make decisions that affect whether people live or die. But, the policy of wealthy governments on global AIDS has been primarily one of shameful neglect.
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People living with AIDS and allies in the thousands marched in New York to demand action from the US and the rest of the G7. Sponsored by African Services Committee, Health GAP Coalition, Global AIDS Alliance, ACT UP New York, Jubilee USA Network, American Jewish World Service, and Africa Action, June 23, 2001 |
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What's the problem? It's that not enough people are speaking out to call for action by political leaders and major corporations who have the power to save lives. After all, history shows that decision-makers like politicians and corporate leaders cannot simply be counted on, on their own, to make the right decisions. Instead, it takes people affected by their decisions making their expectations clear and demanding accountability. We have to raise our voices as brothers and sisters in a global community. We have to listen to people living with AIDS and join in their call to action.
Isn't it enough to just make a donation to an international AIDS program? No, it's not. So start your move..advertise this campaign.......sign a petition....send a letter....now!!!
What does this VIP said.....
"The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented crisis that requires an unprecedented response. In particular it requires solidarity between the healthy and the sick, between rich and poor, and above all, between richer and poorer nations. We have 30 million orphans already. How many more do we have to get, to wake up?"
Kofi Annan, United Nations
Secretary General
"I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation. I look at my parents and ask, where were they during the civil rights movement? I look at my grandparents and ask, what were they doing when the holocaust in Europe was occurring with regard to the Jews, and why didn't they speak up? And when we think of our great, great, great-grandparents, we think how could they have sat by and allowed slavery to exist? And I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?"
Rich Stearns, President of World Vision, US
"The vision which fueled our struggle for freedom; the development of energies and resources; the unity and commitment of common goals - all these will be needed if we are to bring AIDS under control. This is a war. We must not continue to be debating, to be arguing, when people are dying."
Former South African President Nelson Mandela, February 17, 2002
"I think [AIDS] is one of the biggest problems on the planet, absolutely. It's something that's going to affect everybody in one way or another. I think that one of our biggest issues as humans is that we don't look at each other as part of the same life."
Alicia Keys, US recording artist
"The HIV/AIDS pandemic is one of the most intractable problems facing mankind today. It has certainly set the clock back by decades in some of the poorest regions in the world, nullifying painstakingly made progress in the economic and social well-being of millions of people."
John Monks, General Secretary Trade Union Congress, United Kingdom
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