Poor Nations Denied Access to New HIV/AIDS Medicines: MSF

Poor nations denied access to new HIV/AIDS medicines: MSF

NAIROBI, March 16 (Xinhua) — International humanitarian group Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday that people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries are not getting new and improved drugs that can make a critical difference.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, the MSF criticized the standard practice of drug companies to market less adapted drugs to African, Asian and Latin American countries while reserving improved or newly developed drugs for countries that can pay more.

“With the high temperatures and with the numerous daily electrical blackouts, our patients can’t use the old version of this drug,” said Christine Genevier, head of mission for MSF’s AIDS treatment programs in Kenya.

“It’s a cruel irony that although this drug with no need for refrigeration seems to have been designed for places like Kenya, it is not available here,” Genevier added.

The MSF said it was placing an order directly with the worldwide headquarters of Abbott Laboratories in Chicago for a new heat stable version of the drug called lopinavir/ritonavir, which the company currently only sells in the United States at a price of 9,687 U.S. dollars (average wholesale price).

Abbott launched the new version of their so-called protease inhibitor lopinavir/ritonavir in the United States in November 2005, MSF said, adding unlike the old version, this new one no longer requires refrigeration, making it much more suitable for use in the hot climates of many developing countries.

“But when MSF inquired about the price and availability of this new product for its patients, Abbott responded that it would wait until the product was available in Europe before requesting marketing approval in developing countries,” the MSF said.

“This means a potential delay of years before this drug reaches the people who can benefit from it most,” it added.

The drug lopinavir/ritonavir is a crucial component of anti- retroviral therapy for patients that need to be switched to a newer ‘second-line’ treatment regimen when drug resistance naturally develops after a few years on their first set of medications.

Armed with evidence from industry experts that the new formulation is less expensive to make than the old one, MSF also demanded the lowest possible price, which would be no more than the amount Abbott charges some developing countries for the old version.

In a letter to the CEO of Abbott, prominent doctors/researchers and AIDS organizations from around the world urged Abbott to make new lopinavir/ritonavir available “immediately” to patients in developing countries.

The MSF provides anti-retroviral drugs for over 60,000 patients in nine countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Sub-Saharan Africa has about 10 percent of the world’s population but 60 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS.