Poor left behind onAIDS treatment

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Poor countries left behind on Aids treatment

By Alan Beattie in Davos

Published: January 26 2005 13:36 | Last updated: January 26 2005 13:36

The number of Aids sufferers in the developing world receiving drug

treatment has nearly doubled over the past year but some poor

countries need sharply to increase their efforts, according to

official agencies involved in combating the disease.

A joint announcement by the US administration, the World Health

Organization (WHO), the United Nations programme on Aids (UNAids) and

the Geneva-based Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria

said that by the end of last year, 700,000 people were receiving

treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, which suppress the effects

of Aids. The total, 75 per cent higher than a year earlier, marks a

rapid increase despite the fears of sceptics that drug treatment would

prove too difficult and expensive.

" In 2001 when the UN held a special session on Aids, people could not

even agree on whether to support drug treatment in developing

countries, " said Piot, executive director of UNAids, speaking at

the World Economic Forum in Davos. " 2004 was the year that we moved

from tens of thousands in treatment to hundreds of thousands. "

But he stressed that treatment will have to continue to accelerate to

meet the WHO's target of getting 3m Aids sufferers on to drug

treatment by the end of 2005.

South Africa, India and Nigeria between them comprise 41 per cent of

the gap between the number of sufferers currently treated and the 3m

target. Leaders in those countries have frequently been accused of

neglecting the Aids pandemic. Jim Kim, director of the WHO's HIV-Aids

department, said: " The rhetoric from India, Nigeria and South Africa

has got better. But they still have to become much more serious about

scaling up treatment. " Dr Kim said that countries had to start

investing their own money to kick-start treatment rather than sitting

back and waiting for grants from the global fund.

The agencies also emphasised the need for continued research into new

drugs, given signs that strains of the Aids virus resistant to the

first generation of ARV drugs are emerging in developing countries.

Randall Tobias, the White House's Aids co-ordinator and a former chief

executive of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, stressed the

importance of creating incentives for drugs companies to continue

research. Drug company executives say that research and development

for Aids drugs and vaccines has fallen by around a third in recent

years as companies react to the threat of " compulsory licensing "

governments using provisions in intellectual property law to override

patent protection.

" Governments and pharmaceutical companies must work together to make

sure the incentives are there to develop the next generation of

drugs, " Mr Tobias said.

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