Re: Bush’s decision to select Vietnam instead of India for HIV support

[Guest guest]

On Bush's decision to select Vietnam instead of India to include in

his emergency plan for AIDS relief.

The following excerpts is from the background briefing on the President's

pending HIV/AIDS relief announcements: 5:05 P.M. EDTWASHINGTON, June 22

/PRNewswire/[Moderator]

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And with that, we'll take your

questions.

Q Yes, I wanted to ask about the decision to select Vietnam instead

of India, for example. A number of people, as you suggested, have

been pressing for India, which is a higher infection rate. The

numbers are much greater in India. And there have been some

suggestions from some on the Hill that this

is politically motivated as appealing to the Vietnamese community.

I'm wondering if you can go over in detail why Vietnam over India?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the reason that we chose

Vietnam is that Vietnam is the place where we believe we can address

our money and our attention and really make the greatest impact.

And it's very timely because the epidemic in Vietnam is about to go

more broadly into the general population, whereas it has been

concentrated largely among commercial sex workers and intravenous

drug users.

The multiplier effect of looking at the number of people who are

infected in Vietnam today, about 130,000 versus the estimate in

2010, is eight times. So we're talking really about explosive growth

in a part of the world that will have a tremendous impact not only

on Asia and Southeast Asia, but potentially on the rest of the

world. That compares with a three times increase in that same

period in India, a four times increase in Russia, and a seven and a

half times increase in China -- all of which are very, very big

numbers.

India was certainly a place that we considered, but one other factor

I think that was something that we considered was the degree of

commitment that existed in Vietnam today where Vietnam is spending

about $36 per person infected with AIDS, as compared to India that's

spending about $6 per person infected with AIDS. India is a

somewhat different country than all of the other countries in the

plan in that they have a growing middle class.

They have a growing economy, and they really have the ability to

make some trade- off decisions themselves to prioritize more

resources in this direction.

This was not an easy call. There are a number of countries in the

world that would be very good candidates. But in the end, we

concluded that Vietnam was really the best choice.

I might just add one additional point and that is that our

commitment in India currently is over $20 million. It is the

largest of our non-focus countries. And so we're already doing a

great deal in India, and I would expect in the years ahead we will

continue that and probably increase it.

Q I'd just like to follow up on that. So this has nothing to do

with India's role in making generic drugs, which some people have

made that accusation?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Our policy from the very beginning

of the emergency plan, which we have clearly stated over and over is

that we will buy the least expensive drugs we can find without

regard to the country of origin, without regard to who manufactures

them, without regard to whether they're brand name or copies or

generics, as long as we can be assured that they're safe and

effective, so with the new program that the FDA has put in place for

very accelerated review of AIDS drugs, and the decision we've made

in my office that if the FDA, in fact, provides tentative approval

of any drug for which the manufacturer applies for approval, then

that drug will be eligible for funding.

And we have been in contact, as a matter of fact, with a couple

of the major manufacturers in India, encouraging them to apply for

this accelerated approval. We hope that virtually any company in

the world that's manufacturing AIDS drugs will, in fact, apply for

this FDA review.

Q This thing again on the question of why not India, there were

reports also that Indian officials themselves had done some heavy

lobbying to persuade people not to name them the 15th country

because India, in the view of some -- first of all, Indian officials

have -- some of them are said to be in a state of denial about the

degree of the problem in India.

What's more, they did not want the stigma of being a country heavily

infected with AIDS to be further ratified by being named a focus

country. Would you comment on that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, not only did the drug issue

not have anything to do with this decision, that's the first time

I've heard of that really one way or the other. So that had nothing

to do with this decision either.

Q So you never had any indication from Indian officials that they

would prefer not to be named a focus country?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Not to my knowledge.

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