AS AIDS EPIDEMIC GROWS
South Africa resists U.S. drug firms' greed
By Key
Martin and Johnnie Stevens
Cape Town, South Africa
"The AIDS epidemic and the struggle against it is a major
government priority," says Tony Yengeny, the African National
Congress Parliamentary Whip. "We are very disturbed by the fact
that pharmaceutical companies from the United States are not
sympathetic to the plight of millions of our people who are
dying of AIDS."
After months of protests by AIDS activists in the United
States and Africa, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association
has "temporarily" suspended its legal action against South
Africa. It had been challenging a law passed by the new South
African government that would make medicines--particularly HIV
treatments--more accessible to the poor communities that are
still the overwhelming majority of the population.
Apartheid-era laws were highly favorable to the
pharmaceutical companies. The government enticed them to ignore
the boycott and divestment campaigns, and medicine costs are
high.
The PMA announcement came just days before the new South
African President Thabo Mbeki was due to arrive in the United
States for his first speech at the United Nations. And it also
came just before the major Africa AIDS conference in deeply
stricken Zambia, where the pharmaceutical executives were to be
met with great anger.
The legal action in the South African Constitutional Court
by the PMA had blocked implementation of the new law since its
passage nearly two years ago. Many people have since died whose
lives might have been prolonged by these medicines.
Heads of these 40 pharmaceutical companies have said they
expect "changes" in the law. And they have implied that there
are currently discussions to do just that.
But the South African ANC government rebutted that claim. A
Sept. 13 government statement said: "There are no negotiations
with the PMA with respect to any litigation the PMA has brought
against the government. The only acceptable solution is the
total withdrawal of litigation with regard to medicines
legislation."
These companies seek to maintain "designer drug" prices for
medicines that need to be distributed on a mass scale.
An estimated 32 million people are infected with HIV in
Africa. Some countries have seen their population's life
expectancies plummet in recent years because of the high rate
of AIDS-related deaths.
The price for a monthly dosage of the current medicines is
more than an employed South African worker with a regular job
earns in a month.
Only about one worker in 30 can find steady employment. Most
workers--particularly young people, who have the highest rate
of HIV infection--are in the "informal" work force.
It is estimated that 3.5 million to 5 million people--out of
a population of 40 million--are HIV-positive. Those numbers are
rising to over 30 percent among youths and other sectors of the
population.
`Profits before people'
The government is still forced to pay the unconscionable
apartheid-era debt of $30 billion. As a result, it has few
funds with which to provide sky-high-priced medicines to the
poor.
"They are putting profits before people. And we think that
is wrong," Yengeni continued.
"This AIDS epidemic may be with us now, but it is going to
have an impact not only on South Africans but eventually on the
world as a whole. The pharmaceutical companies in the United
States should cooperate in insuring that this disease is
destroyed, sooner rather than later--or else the whole African
continent will be wiped out and they will have to shoulder the
bulk of that responsibility.
"So I think that it is in the interests not only of Africans
and South Africans, but also of other people in the
world--particularly the most powerful country in the world, the
United States--to do something practical in putting down the
scourge."
The old apartheid government built few medical services and
no preventive medicine facilities in the townships that are
home to most of the urban African population.
The sprawling Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital--the biggest
in the Southern Hemisphere with 3,000 beds--provides services
to Soweto. But the 4 million people in the township have little
else to fall back on except traditional healers, frequently
without access to modern medicines.
In the countryside, hundreds of Cuban doctors have begun to
assist in bringing medical services to the rural poor. Another
500 South Africans left this month to study medicine in
Cuba.
However, many South African doctors have departed for London
and Saudi Arabia for better-paying jobs, leaving a vacuum in
South Africa. This was one of the issues in the recent one-day
strike by a half-million government workers, many of whom live
below poverty levels.
Private hospitals serving the well-to-do segments of the
population charge prices that most just cannot afford.
In response to the crisis, the Parliament passed a law
directing the minister of health to pursue "parallel imports"
and "compulsory licensing" of medicines to service poor
communities.
Parallel imports enable the country to import from third
countries, such as Brazil or Canada, if it can get prices
cheaper than the original manufacturer's.
Under compulsory licensing, the minister of health orders
the domestic production of generic medicines with compensation
for patent or intellectual property rights.
Its authors viewed the law as complying with World Trade
Organization protections for corporate patent claims. However
the drug corporations blocked it in court.
U.S. trade representatives threatened retaliation against
South African trade--and even blocked some items from South
Africa's Most Favored Nation status, resulting in much higher
tariffs.
The issue of affordability is a world issue as the AIDS
epidemic also sweeps into South Asia and Latin America.
"The struggle in South Africa is not over. We need a
revitalization of the free South Africa struggle to rid
ourselves of economic deprivation, to rid ourselves of
diseases, and to make ourselves independent of colonial powers
who continue to have economic domination over us," said Dr. Sam
Gulabe.
Gulabe was known to a generation of anti-apartheid activists
by the nom d'guerre David Ndaba when he was the ANC
representative at the United Nations. Gulabe is currently a
lieutenant colonel at One Military Hospital, charged with the
medical care of the president and former president.
"We have to rely on importing medicines," he said. "On the
one side there is the pharmaceutical industry, who feel they
have to protect their intellectual property rights. On the
other side, African countries have difficulties facing such a
devastating disease and these drugs that are being produced by
the pharmaceuticals are unaffordable.
"Even in the United States there are many people whose
medical insurance has run out.
"When we came up with the legislation," he explained, "we
began to feel that the U.S. government was challenging the law
made by our government in our own Parliament that was giving
the means and the power to import the generic drugs from
overseas--without violating the WTO regulations--so they can be
affordable to South African society.
"The U.S. government was telling the South African
government that they cannot pass such a law," Gulabe continued.
"It is a legitimate, democratic Parliament, elected by the
people. They sit down, they make the legislation, then somebody
comes from Washington and says, `No, the legislation is
wrong.'
"Can you imagine what would happen if a South African
government goes to Washington and tells the U.S. congressmen
that the legislation they are making is wrong and we are going
to punish you?" he asked.
"That really made people angry. South Africa is the last
country to violate international law because we strongly
believe in it. The international community supported our
struggle to end apartheid.
Gulabe concluded, "We will always abide by international
law, but we will not accept for the U.S. government to tell us
what type of legislation we can make and what we cannot
make."
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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