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afrol.com/AENS, 13 March - Human rights demonstrators all over the world this week accused American pharmaceutical companies of 'new global apartheid' for denying cheap anti-AIDS drugs to the Third World. Protestors from the Gray Panthers, Doctors-Without-Borders and Oxfam America made the accusation while picketing the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) offices in Washington DC on Monday in support of the South African government's court challenge against 40 drug firms. The coalition of companies have applied to South African courts to block the country's implementation of a 1997 law permitting the import or manufacture cheaper generic AIDS drugs. "We are here to organise against a new global apartheid because that is what these pharmaceuticals and the Bush administration are pushing now," Salih Booker an influential Africa analyst told hundreds of protestors. - Right now, the AIDS epidemic is killing Black people and that is why the world has been slow to act, that's why the pharmaceutical companies do not care, Booker said. Booker accused the drug firms of profiteering as the AIDS pandemic ravages Africa and progresses across the Caribbean islands and the black communities in the United States. - This is a lawsuit against Nelson Mandela, said Seth Amgott of Oxfam America. "They are suing poor people in order to keep their profits." Mandela's government enacted the 1997 South African Medicines Act permitting the country's health minister to shop around for the lowest priced patented products. It also gives the minister powers to permit local companies to manufacture generic versions of patented drugs. South Africa's attempts to implement the law is supported by a global human rights movement, which is horrified by what it sees as the profiteering of drug makers at the expense of poor Africans. Demonstrators paraded through the US capital on Monday afternoon with placards reading "Murdered by GlaxoSmithKline" and "Pharmaceutical greed kills, stop drug lawsuit now." Doctors-Without-Borders also used the demonstration to publicise their global 'drop the case' signature campaign to enlist individuals and political figures around the world to pressure drug firms into dropping their legal challenge to South Africa. Oxfam has in turn launched a programme that utilises public pressure to push GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the world's largest drugs company, to lead the way in providing affordable and effective medicines to poor countries. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 24 million of the 35 million people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Most African countries only have per capita incomes averaging US$ 500 - effectively putting AIDS drugs beyond the reach of the masses. The cost of annual treatment with the triple-therapy cocktail of anti-retroviral drugs that have proven effective in controlling the development of HIV into AIDS in western countries is between US$ 10,000 and US$ 15,000 per person in the United States. Drug companies have generally been unwilling to give major price-breaks to poorer nations. - It is disappointing that all this energy is going into a protest that will not end up delivering the cheap drugs to poor people in Africa, said Mark Grayson of PhRMA. "It will not change much whoever wins the South African lawsuit because even at the discounted prices many developing countries cannot afford the drugs. More energy should be spent ensuring that ways to pay for the drugs and to deliver them are found." The drug firms insist that they would not be able to solve Africa's AIDS problem even if they dropped a million dollars worth of free drugs in the worst hotspots because the health facilities, trained personnel and monitoring facilities required are absent in many countries. But pharmaceutical companies are increasingly beginning to bow to public pressure. In May last year five major pharmaceutical companies - Glaxo Wellcome, Merck, Boehringer Ingelheim, F. Hoffmann-La Roche and Bristol Myers Squibb announced a programme that offered discounts of as much as 90 percent for Africa. The offers were, however, laden with complex limits and conditions, and in the case of Senegal only 1,000 people will benefit from the programme when it kicks off. Together with Senegal, only Uganda and Rwanda have taken up the offer. The last few weeks have seen the most significant reductions in drug prices, with firms such as Merck & Co. further reducing prices of some of their drugs by 50 percent on top of the May reduction. Some companies have even offered cheaper prices on some patented drugs than the generics. The established companies are being given a run for their money by Indian generic drug manufacturers threatening to undercut them in Africa. Cipla, a generic drug maker in India recently said it is willing to sell its triple therapy drugs for US$ 350 per annual dose per person to Doctors-Without-Borders. A second Indian manufacturer, Hetero Drugs, has also just announced that it is willing to sell generics of the triple therapy drugs to South Africa for US$347, but only if the country wins its lawsuit against the big drug firms. - My Government did not elect to become involved in this protracted court action, South African Ambassador to the US, Sheila Sisulu told the demonstrators. "We have no choice but to defend our position, since the lives of so many of our people depend on it. South Africa faces many challenges as a result of our legacy of colonialism, oppression and apartheid. Not least of these is a highly inequitable health care system, which was designed to benefit only a small percentage of the population," Sisulu said.
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