S. Africa to Allow Imports of AIDS Drug
The regulatory Medicines Control Council of South Africa, a nation where one in 10 people is HIV-positive, granted a special exemption Thursday to allow importation of a generic anti-AIDS drug. AIDS activists hailed the action as a landmark decision.
The council’s decision to allow the conditional use of Biozole, a generic version of the anti-AIDS drug fluconazole, came after an application from the AIDS Law Project, a South African rights group.
The importation of generic drugs had been prohibited by South Africa, which was concerned that it could break patent laws.
South Africa’s AIDS policy has been mired in controversy since President Thabo Mbeki cast doubt on the causal link between HIV and acquired immune deficiency syndrome and stopped the use of anti-AIDS drugs such as AZT in the state health system on cost and safety grounds.
The rights group had argued that most South Africans could not afford to buy fluconazole, marketed by U.S. drug firm Pfizer under its trade name Diflucan.
About 4.2 million South Africans are HIV-positive. The supply of antiretroviral drugs in the public health sector has been restricted on cost grounds.
The Treatment Action Campaign, an AIDS group that has joined up with the AIDS Law Project, illegally imported thousands of tablets of a generic version of fluconazole from Thailand last month in an attempt to bring pressure on the government.
South Africa’s health minister is expected to announce today--World AIDS Day--a deal with Pfizer for the free distribution of Diflucan.
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